Left 4 Dead: Lambs 2 Slaughter V3
by Mattrocks
Summary: In Auckland City, New Zealand, 2012, an experiment to find a cure for a new disease has gone horrifically wrong. Now four new friends must fight to survive the hell that's been unleashed upon their home and each other. Revised! Please Read and Review!
1. Prologue and Part One

_**Author's Note:**_ Hey good readers, I'm back with Left 4 Dead: Lambs 2 Slaughter once again. This time, however, it's a new version and I need your help.

Y'see, apparently my dialogue for my characters isn't strong at all. It doesn't show their personality. So, what I need you fullas who are reading is to review or send me a PM (Private Message, for those of you new to FanFiction) if you've got any ideas on what I could do. Short of putting in accents for each character (and that's too far - they're not that different, save for Ben - you'll find out who he is later on), I just don't know how I can improve my language.

Yes, I am an anti-social guy at home trying to write dialogue for teenagers about my age who are in my story. Oh, the irony.

Of course, any reviews would be greatly appreciated (seeing how I didn't get ANY reviews for the previous version of this story - I'm surprised, really. Why is that? Can someone answer that, too?), but good critiques on how I can improve the story would be absolutely brilliant.

As with the previous version, the way the Avatar of the Sickness/The Sickness (Early, I know, possible plot spoiler, but I _have_ to get this across) speaks is supposed to be in Chiller font on Microsoft Word 2007, Size 18, but since doesn't support any other fonts, I'm forced to make it so that the Avatar of the Sickness/The Sickness speaks in **Bold, Underlined **text. If the Underlining doesn't work, then take note that there won't be any quotation or speech marks around what these two speak.

As well, the plot of the story's changed a bit from the previous version - a few details have been changed, but it's generally the same. It's bound to be longer, too. I've aimed this time to give my characters more of a "human element" and to make readers have more empathy for the characters, which I think I've done better at this time than before, but it's up to you guys to judge just how successful I've been in this.

Well, thanks for reading this (again, in a sense, for those of you who read the previous version that was on FanFiction, which was V.2.), and please, this time, remember to review!

-Matt

EDIT: After some wrangling with FanFiction's editing system (which won't even let me put in FF. Net together), I can't seem to get the underlines to stick. Ah well.

UPDATE: I've re-worked the entirety of the story. There's going to be more characters, more factions, more situations, more places, and, more importantly, more plot :D Here's the revised edition of Left 4 Dead: Lambs 2 Slaughter V.3.! :D

_Left 4 Dead: Lambs 2 Slaughter V.3._

_By Kiwi Productions_

_(Matthew Co)_

_Prologue: St. Monica's College, Auckland City, New Zealand, 12:23 PM, 18th December, 2012_

'"El Enfermedad hasta Final Todo Enfermedades." Can anyone tell me what that phrase means and where it comes from?'

Mrs. Sarah Smith, Homeroom Teacher of the St. Monica's College Auckland Christmas Holiday Hostel Over-Stayers, strode around the front of her classroom, looking for signs of interest or even life amongst her assembled students as they sat at their desks.

Some looked at each other in bemusement. Others scratched their heads, trying to guess the meaning. Only two students at the front of the class seemed confident enough to know the answer to the question, but Mrs. Smith knew that she'd save them for last, hoping to milk some drop of interest from the class.

Before someone else could lift up their hand, there was a knock at the door, followed by the loud squeaking that accompanied opening said door. A girl poked her head out, looking nervously at the class and then at Mrs. Smith. A few wolf-whistles echoed across the classroom as the girl's long, deep crimson red hair draped down from a very pretty face.

She opened her mouth once, and then swallowed.

'Um… is this Mrs. Smith's class?'

'That it is, young lady,' Mrs. Smith replied, cocking her head at the newcomer. 'And who might you be?'

The girl swallowed once more, keeping the rest of her body behind the door.

'S-sonja Ignis, miss.' She pointed a thumb behind her. 'I was told by reception to get some help here with moving me and my brother Ben's stuff into the dorms.'

Mrs. Smith sighed.

'Bloody receptionists keep forgetting I'm teaching a class,' she muttered under her breath. She coughed and raised her voice, turning to the others. 'Who'll help Miss Ignis with her things?'

Again, two hands popped up first – the very two teenagers at the front of the class who'd put up their hands before. She made a show of deep thought before picking them.

'Go ahead. I expect you two back by one, though.'

Nodding, both brother and sister vacated their seats and made an almost straight beeline for the door, closing it after themselves quietly.

Mrs. Smith smiled as she turned back to the rest of the class, folding her arms across her chest. Now with the threat of the Head Boy and his sister blurting out the answer out loud gone, the class would have to come up with it on their own.

'I'm still waiting, people…'

Outside the classroom and in the corridor, Sonja Ignis took a good look at the two students who had volunteered to help her and Ben with their bags.

She managed to garner that by the matching hair colour of chocolate brown and the green eyes that they were brother and sister, and… well, that was it, really. The boy extended a hand towards her with a smile, which she shook reluctantly.

'Norman. Norman Skibursky,' he introduced himself. He gestured towards the girl who'd accompanied him. 'And this is "Sio-b", my sister. Siobhan, mind you.'

Sonja smiled. Five minutes in this school and already she'd felt like she'd already made friends.

'Sonja,' she returned. 'But you already heard that, didn't you?'

Siobhan nodded and looked at Sonja's main piece of luggage – a large red wheelie almost big enough to fit in two lockers' worth of stuff. It towered over the other two bags.

'No wonder you could use the help, Sonja,' she whistled. She motioned towards the main bag. '_That_ thing looks pretty heavy, especially for a girl like you.'

'I know,' Sonja replied, making a thoughtful look on her face. 'It wasn't that heavy when I first packed it…'

She bent down and unzipped the bag. Norman, Siobhan and even Sonja gasped at what lay within.

'Holy _shit,_' Norman whistled.

'I'll say,' Siobhan added.

'Oh, for chrissakes...' Sonja moaned. '…_Dad_…'

Inside, nestled amongst her clothes and other belongings, was a black assault rifle, complete with a tissue-box-sized ammo container.

'Wait, what?' Norman asked her. 'What's this about your dad?'

Sonja sighed.

'My dad's ex-U.S. Military,' she explained. 'This is my Grandpa Bill's rifle. He's got a strange superstition that it'll give me good luck. And I told him _specifically _I didn't want to bring it with me…'

'So then how the hell did you get this past Customs?' Siobhan wondered aloud, raising an eyebrow.

'Dad used to be part of an elite Covert Ops unit that served during Operation: Desert Storm,' Sonja said. 'Infiltrating the enemy bases. This would've been considered a cakewalk for him. _Shit_. The gun? Sure. But the ammo, too?'

'What the hell are you gonna do with that?' Siobhan finished for her.

'_Exactly._' She bent down and quickly zipped up the bag. 'I gotta hide this thing, or else I'll be booted out of here before I even get in my first class.'

'Well, you'll be able to get in at least one class before that happens,' Siobhan smirked. Her confidence put Sonja at ease.

'I say we tell Mrs. Smith about the gun,' Norman suggested. 'Just tell her the truth. But leave out the fact you've got live ammo, too. We don't want to give her heart too much to handle – even though she's in her twenties.'

Siobhan nodded.

'I can tell right away that you're going to be an interesting person to have in our room,' she said. She spotted Sonja's confused look and smiled. 'Mrs. Smith told us that we'd have newbies in our room.'

'More like FNGs,' Sonja corrected her. Siobhan giggled a bit as Norman raised an eyebrow.

'What's that mean?' he wondered aloud. His sister simply gave him a gentle punch on the arm.

'It means I know one more term than you do,' she grinned as she began to wheel one of Sonja's other bags and led the way to the dorms. Sonja glanced at Norman.

'What was all that about?' she asked him. He chuckled.

'Little brother-sister rivalry we have,' he explained as he helped her wheel the big bag. 'Simply about the size of vocab, y'see. Me? I'm ranging about two thousand words at best.'

Sonja whistled as they started to wheel the main bag.

'Excuse my swearing, but that's a shitload.'

Norman smirked.

'Yeah. Well, thanks to you, Siob now can remember two thousand _and one_ words.'

'Hey! I can hear you two back down there!' Siobhan called out from the other end of the corridor. 'Sonja, don't worry about him! He's just trying to seduce you with simple chat, just like the other good-looking girls here at St. Mons!'

Norman just shook his head.

'Backstabbing little vixen,' he muttered. 'Next time, I shouldn't be so merciful about her claims that she has logorrhoea.'

'"Claims"?' Sonja wondered aloud. 'And what's logorrhoea?'

Norman nodded.

'Yeah. Dunno why, but she thinks she's got logorrhoea – a disorder that causes people to start spewing out irrelevant and trivial information,' he explained. 'Hell if I know why – she doesn't sound like it – but _she_ reckons it gives her an excuse to be a bit bitchy at times. Hardly can see the link between the two and can hardly complain without her gnawing off my head, but what can you do?'

Sonja shrugged as they wheeled hers and Ben's bags towards the dorms. This new school was _definitely_ going to be an interesting experience.

'"The Sickness to End All Sicknesses".'

Sonja raised an eyebrow at Siobhan.

'Excuse me?'

Siobhan smirked as she perched herself on the edge of her bed. The freckles that were generously sprinkled across her nose seemed to accentuate her smugness.

'You heard me,' she replied. She gave it a second of thought before raising a finger. 'Or, rather, you probably heard Mrs. Smith, no? It was the answer to her question; the translation to "El Enfermedad hasta Final Todo Enfermedades".'

Sonja just shrugged as she lay back on her new bed in "The SD", or rather "The Skibursky Den", as Norman had lovingly called his and Siobhan's room. It was large and T-shaped, and had plenty of space. She wondered what the two did with all the extra space.

In fact, The SD really did feel like a den, Sonja had to admit. The perfectly-dimmed-down yellow lighting from the four lamps equally scattered around the room, the T.V. nestled on the other end of the room and the comfy, much-loved couch that faced it certainly gave it the homely feel. Even with two more beds there was plenty of space to go around.

The only difference was that this wasn't just an ordinary den. It was a den for either nerds or people who really kept on top of, well… _everything_.

A massive corkboard was hung on the main wall with numerous things either printed out from the St. Monica's College computer network or newspaper clippings. Each was dated and labelled.

The most recent one was about a new disease, labelled "The Sickness".

'Y'know,' Sonja began, changing the topic, 'I've been in dorms before… but _this_…'

'The couch was recycled, mind you,' Norman told her as he unzipped the last of the bags Sonja had brought with her. He stopped and lifted up what Sonja had originally thought was the actual surface of the brown leather couch. Underneath were numerous patches, sewn skilfully in. 'And the T.V. and the lamps were being thrown out when me and Siob came across them,' he added, gesturing towards the respective objects. 'And yeah, I know. It's not normal in schools anywhere to have mixed gender dorms. St. Mons is trying it out and seeing what happens.'

Sonja, for once in the past month, was speechless. The last time that happened was when Ben had burnt down the house just before they left America for New Zealand.

Siobhan noticed the look on her face and the smirk grew wider. Unchecked, Sonja reckoned, she'd be grinning like the Cheshire Cat considering the rate it was spreading.

'Pretty much everything in here you see that's not normal dormitory equipment is recycled or scavenged,' she told her. 'You could say we're… resourceful.'

Sonja drew in a quick breath.

'I'll say.'

Before she could get in another word, there was a loud knock at the door. Siobhan hopped off her bed and opened it.

A figure stumbled in. Slightly smaller than Sonja, he was wearing a pair of scientific goggles and was covered in soot, trailing a bag behind him with his left hand. He looked up at the stern look Siobhan was giving him.

'Hullo,' he simply said with a toothy grin. He cocked his head around Siobhan and spotted Sonja, who groaned at the sight of him. 'This is the right place, innit?'

Siobhan folded her arms across her chest and narrowed her lustrous green eyes at him menacingly.

'Mmmmmmhm. And you're Ben, I take it?'

The boy opened his mouth and then closed it.

'Yup. Ahem.' He took off the goggles to reveal a pair of blue eyes, turning over the goggles in his free hand before handing them to Siobhan. 'Mr. Pebbleford's probably going to want these back, and peferrably not from me.'

Siobhan sighed and let him into The Den, closing the door behind him. Ben whistled as he looked around.

'Whoo. Love what you've done here.' He glanced at Sonja. 'What'd you get?'

Sonja raised an eyebrow.

'What?' she managed.

'Y'know, what didya get from Dad? I just found he snuck in a Glock in my bag. Surely you got something from him, too, Sonja?'

Sonja glanced at Norman and Siobhan, who just shrugged.

'Sweet Jesus, for some strange reason I like the way your dad packs,' Norman remarked.

Two hours later at Lunch, Sonja sat at one of the rectangular teal tables in the school's canteen. Sitting by herself in one of the corner tables, she was writing into her pad with a pencil, her hearty lunch of mashed potato, peas and steak beginning to grow cold and unloved to one side.

'Hey. Mind if we sit here?'

Sonja looked up to find Norman standing there beside Siobhan, each holding their own lunch trays. She smiled.

'Sure. Why not?'

Nodding, both brother and sister sat down on the other side of the table as she continued her writing. Norman raised an eyebrow at what Sonja was writing.

'Strange,' he said. 'Doesn't look like homework.'

'It ain't,' Ben's voice said from behind the Skiburskys. 'It's her story, that's what.'

Sonja looked up again to find her brother take a seat next to her. She shuffled away from him a bit as Siobhan looked at her thoughtfully.

'A story, hm? What's it about?' she asked inquisitively.

Sonja gave this a bit of thought. She was about to reply when a group of three students approached the table – a girl with long, blonde hair who had an entourage of two boys.

'It's Madison…' Siobhan whispered in a sing-song voice, gritting her teeth. 'Shit.'

'Sonja, Ben, best to stay quiet and let us handle this,' Norman said. 'Trust me.'

Ben raised an eyebrow before he saw the approaching teenagers.

'Hey! That's the girl that had been shouting at me when I popped in during that Chemistry lesson earlier-'

'You.'

The girl's voice was sharp and cold, like a piercing knife as she glared at Ben, stopping him.

'You. You're the retard who blundered in during class three hours ago.' She paused as her two friends seemed to tense, leaning forward and putting her hands on the table next to Ben. Her voice changed to a sultry tone. 'Ya know, that show you put on was much more amusing than what Mr. Pebbleford was teaching us…'

Ben gulped as he knew what would come next.

'…I wouldn't have minded it too much. Except for the fact that you wrecked my handbag with that little chemical explosion you set off.'

Her eyes narrowed in contempt as Ben began to lean away from her.

'Hey, hey!' Norman interjected. 'Madi, leave the new guy alone, willya? You even said that handbag of yours was crap, anyways.'

Sonja spared a glance towards Siobhan, who was clenching her fists under the table. She could feel the hostility Siobhan held for this Madison. She simply returned to her work. Madison simply sneered at Norman.

'And, Norman? He still wrecked it. And he's going to pay for it. These newbies will learn to never screw with Madison Perry!'

Her hand lashed out and ripped Sonja's pad out from under her and immediately began reading the contents. Sonja, for a few seconds, was dumbstruck.

'What… the hell… is this?' Madison managed. 'The writings of some screwed up _bitch?_'

Sonja immediately stood up and gave Madison her worst glare. It was enough to cause Norman, Siobhan and Ben to flinch.

'Give… my pad… back.'

Madison looked up at her.

'Oh… and who's going to stop me?' she sneered. 'You?'

That was enough. Sonja had dealt with numerous bullies in her previous schools, and thus there was only one way to end this. Without warning Sonja kicked her chair back, cupped her hands and with a single move, she slammed them onto Madison's ears, snatching back her pad while Madison was dazed. She planted a shoe onto her chest and sent her onto her back.

Enraged, one of Madison's entourage, the one wearing a black hoodie, swung a punch at her. She ducked and executed a low roundhouse kick that caused him to tumble. The second boy swung another punch at her.

Before Sonja could react, Siobhan had come up from behind the boy and restrained his arm. Turning on her, the boy tried to lash out at her, but she managed to pull off a quick kick to his groin, causing Ben and Norman to cringe. As the pain reflex hit in and the boy bent over, groaning, Siobhan slammed her knee into his forehead, knocking her victim on his back.

Sonja calmly put her pad back onto the table as Madison scowled and escaped from the scene, her cronies doing the same.

'That'll teach _her_ to mess with me and my brother,' she said, retrieving her seat. She looked at the small crowd that had gathered during the fight and asked sweetly, 'What are you lot looking at?'

Without a word, they each retreated back to their own tables, talking intently to each other.

Siobhan whistled as she sat down. 'I've _always_ wanted to do that to Madison and her cronies for a long, _long_ time. You can fight real good, Sonja, I'll give ya that.'

Norman nodded at Sonja.

'Oh, believe me, she _has_,' he said. 'While I might be Head Boy of St. Mons for this year, Madison's been Head Bitch for the _past three years_. If you get in trouble, Siob and I'll stand by ya.'

Ben smirked as Sonja returned to her work as if nothing had happened. He turned towards Norman.

'Thanks for standing up for me by the way, Norm,' he said. 'First time someone's done that for me.'

'Oh, and I wonder why that is, Ben?' Sonja chortled teasingly, not looking up from her freshly retrieved pad. 'After all, people don't exactly want to be associated with a pyromaniac such as yourself, after all.'

Ben simply shrugged.

'I honestly don't see the connection between me getting mocked and me being a pyromaniac, Sonja,' he replied. 'Hell, if anything, the reaction's I've been getting should be the opposite. A pyromaniac's a fun guy to have at a party, innit?'

'Well… from what I've seen of you so far, Ben, you seem like the Bart Simpson of the school,' Siobhan said, cocking her head and pursing her lips at him before digging her fork into her mashed potato. 'Not to mention you ended up frying Madison's bag.'

'Yeah… like that's making me feel better,' Ben snorted and ruffled up the mop of crimson-red hair on his head. 'Anyways, Sonja's writing a story, since she wants to be a writer – like Mum. It's something about a romance in the middle of a zombie apocalypse or whatnot.'

Norman smirked at Sonja.

'Inspired by current events, eh?' he asked her. She shrugged.

'You could say that…' she replied, although it was clear that wasn't the case.

'You mind if me and Siob take a look?'

Sonja shrugged and passed the notepad over to Norman, who scanned its contents for half a minute and nodded.

'Well, well, well. This story looks like it could be going places, given enough time,' he said, letting Siobhan have a look, 'contrary to what Madison said. I didn't read too much, but your writing style… I can sort of envision this Fairfield city and your characters.'

'Yeah,' Siobhan added. 'The names sound pretty original. Zoey, Francis, Louis and Bill. Actually, it's quite a co-incidence that me and Norman just so happen to have an Uncle Francis who's a biker as well.'

Ben shrugged. 'Fairfield's an actual place in America,' he said. 'Our Grandpa Bill lives there. After he heard that Sonja was writing a zombie story, he wanted in on it. And so, that's that.'

Siobhan nodded before handing the notepad back to Sonja.

'This is really good, Sonja…' she paused. 'Y'know, somehow… somehow calling you Sonja just doesn't seem to fit in with you.'

Norman nodded in agreement.

'If we're going to be hanging around with you, and to be honest, I reckon that we might be, I think you're going to need a nickname,' he said, scratching the back of his head, his short, handsomely-styled hair spreading at his fingertips. 'Me and Siob have our nicknames, even if they are a bit simple. Ben obviously doesn't need one. You, on the other hand, could use something more… elaborate.'

Sonja shrugged.

'Really, guys, I'm flattered, but there's no need,' she said. 'Simply "Sonja" works fine with me.'

Siobhan raised a finger.

'I know! Blaze!' she announced. She produced a pen from a pocket and wrote down the word "BLAZE" on a clear spot on Sonja's pad. 'That would fit in with your last name, your personality – "leave me alone or I'll burn ya" – and your look – unless you intend on changing those in the near future…'

Ben snorted.

'Really? Nicknames soon after you meet her for the first time?' He shook his head. 'First it's the classes being open right before Christmas. Then we've got bullies willing to attack in broad daylight. And then _this_. This school's more messed up than St. Tim's…'

The three of them ignored his statement as Sonja peered at the new name she'd been given.

'Actually, if you can give me that pen for a sec…' Sonja took Siobhan's pen and placed an "I" between the "A" and "Z". She smiled smugly at both brother and sister. 'If you'll spell it like that, we have a deal.'

Norman raised an eyebrow and nodded.

Norman thought about this for a few seconds before smiling at her. 'Blaize,' he said. 'Sounds like a brilliant name.' Siobhan nodded in agreement as she finished the rest of her lunch.

'Miss Ignis? And Miss Skibursky?'

The four of them immediately turned to see the principal striding towards them, a stern look on his face. Norman and Siobhan gave Blaize reassuring smiles.

'Don't worry,' he said. 'We take care of our own, remember?'

Blaize smiled as the four of them stood up to meet the principal.

One hell of a first day.

_Part One: St. Monica's College, Auckland City, New Zealand, 6:28 AM, 19th December, 2012_

'_W__hat the hell?'_

_A large, burly man in a black trench coat wielding a black assault rifle shook his head as he heard his partner curse. They had returned from some break they had taken to do a guard switch for the facility they were guarding, expecting the switch to go as smoothly as it had previous times._

_Instead, when they reached the facility, they found the place was eerily dark and looked deserted. The lights were out, and there wasn't anyone outside to greet them. When they opened the entrance doors with their security clearances, they were greeted - not by a human being, but rather a large bloody handprint on the inside of the entrance door._

_Managing to restore the power to the place from the outside, the two had advanced slowly into the laboratory, following the blood trail that originated from the handprint. They soon found that their mission to guard the facility had failed._

_A man in a scientist's coat was lying on the ground, a massive chunk of his throat missing. The walls of the corridor were stained with the man's blood. The man's partner prodded the fatal wound with the end of his black suppressed machine gun._

_The grooves alongside the wound revealed that the man's throat had been torn out by a set of monstrous jaws. _

'_This bite… it's like a bloody crocodile did this,' the second man piped up from behind his black gas mask. 'Plus, this looks fresh. It has to be that diseased chimp. What the _frak_ have these scientists done? Looking at this, I don't think I want to know what's happened to Rick and Jordan…'_

_The first man raised an eyebrow and peered at the wound, his weathered brown eyes scrutinizing every gory detail. _

'_I knew it,' he spat. 'I knew something bad would come of this.' He shook his head. 'Cyrus, go get Animal Control in here. And the rest of the Rough Riders. Now.'_

_Cyrus nodded, fiddling with his radio._

'_Damnit. There's no frakking signal,' he reported after a few seconds of disturbing silence. 'I'll have to do it outside, Nick.'_

'_Go ahead, then. I'll secure the area.'_

_Cyrus nodded, and seconds later the edges of his own black trench coat disappeared down the wide corridor as Nick examined the corpse under the dim, damaged and flickering lights that cast an ominous glow along the reddened walls._

_The radio on Nick's coat sparked to life a minute later._

'_Nick? Heads up; just found multiple sets of footprints that lead outside,' Cyrus' voice reported. 'Something, a _pack_ of something got out while we went in. Animal Control and the rest of the Rough Riders are on their way. I'll have tracking teams on whatever it is that got out. Probably a few survivors.'_

_Nick swallowed._

'_Got it. Stay on guard outside the facility,' he ordered. 'Nothing gets in or out without my permission or if it's one of us. If you can, get in contact with the school that's nearby – St. Monica's College, I think it is – and tell them what's happened.'_

'_Yes, sir.'_

_It was silent once more. Five minutes after Cyrus' departure, he heard meaty thumps from down the other end of the hallway._

_Looking up towards the source of the sounds, he found that the lights on the other end of the corridor had gone out, rendering that area pitch black…_

…_except for a pair of glowing red eyes that seemed to stare into Nick's very soul. Then, the shadows spoke._

**_Rise... for the Sickness... _**_it said in a strangled voice as the lights around Nick started to flicker and slowly die._

_Nick raised his eyebrow, confused, when movement right next to him alerted him that the darkness wasn't talking to him. As he averted his gaze from the creature to the body of the scientist, his eyes widened in horror as he watched the corpse pick itself up and bare its teeth at him._

_He instinctively rifle-butted the scientist back and shot a few rounds into its face, killing it. His heartbeat was pounding in his ears, adrenaline rushing through him as he stared at the corpse, trying to steady his breathing._

_And then he turned back towards the darkness._

_Enveloped in shadows no more, the creature with the glowing red eyes emerged into the light, just two meters away from him._

_Nick had seen many things during his life as a front-line soldier. He'd seen heads blown off from sniper shots. He'd seen medics trying to re-attach a man's arm back to his body. He'd even gutted an enemy trooper with his knife when the poor bugger tried to sneak up on him._

_But what he beheld was worse than all of what he'd seen in his life._

_It was a chimpanzee. _

_But this thing could only be called such if a chimpanzee was a large, bulky thing twice the size of a man that had heavily bloodstained black fur, claws and fangs the size of kitchen knives and hateful glowing red eyes._

_Large, bulging veins could be seen across the creature's face, and a large portion of the meat from its face hung out, the flesh exposed and leaking pus, greenish blood and other disgusting substances._

_He wasn't a scientist, but even he knew that pus didn't appear until days after an infection had developed in a large wound. The fact that the disgusting stuff was already present in what appeared to be freshly-caused wounds made him realize just how horrific the disease was._

_His eyes widened as it prowled slowly towards him, as if it were a sick parody of a cat. His limbs were paralysed with shock._

_And then suddenly he could now smell the creature. Nothing could've prepared him for the noxious smell of the mixed substances that leaked from the creature's skin. He fell to his knees, retching. _

_The smell was so strong that it surrounded the creature in a miasma that assaulted even the pores of his skin, an extremely sick feeling overwhelming him as he felt his skin crawl. He began to cough violently, the miasma crushing his insides like a vice and sapping his strength. _

_Despite this, he was able to use his military discipline to override the debilitating effects of the stench and lifted his assault rifle with what remained of his strength to fire at the creature. _

_His index finger squeezed the trigger, but then an almost deafening inhuman scream pierced the air, and the thing leapt at him._

Blaize woke up.

Bolting upright in her bed, she struggled to control her breathing. Her heart was thumping in her chest rapidly. Sweat started to pour off her forehead as she rubbed her eyes.

She'd had a nightmare – at least she was familiar with such things. She was in The Skibursky Den, in her new bed, not accompanying two trench-coated men in a science facility.

Moonlight shone in from the window behind her bed, illuminating her army-coloured tee shirt and pyjama pants. She took in a few deep breaths before looking up at the clock to her left, high up on the wall.

It was six-thirty in the morning.

'Bad dreams, huh?'

Blaize glanced to the bed next to hers. Siobhan was still lying on her bed, but she was awake and looking at her inquisitively.

'I… I…' Blaize swallowed nervously. 'It's a bit early to be up, isn't it?' she finally managed.

Siobhan shrugged.

'Me and Norm generally get up at this time,' she replied. 'Don't think that I don't notice you trying to shift the topic, by the way. I know it must've been bad, since you kept moving around and groaning about something.'

Blaize looked away.

'I… it's nothing,' she said. 'Just… just bad dreams, 'sall.'

Siobhan shrugged again.

'Well… if you want, I'm here,' she said. She paused, looking at Blaize inquisitively. 'Y'know, I'd been meaning to ask; where _did_ you learn how to fight like you did earlier, anyway?'

Blaize nodded. The nightmare was fading away quickly from her mind.

'My dad,' she explained.

'The one who snuck in guns and ammo in both yours and Ben's bags?' Siobhan wondered aloud sarcastically. 'Why am I not surprised?'

This made Blaize smirk.

'Well, he _was_ a sergeant. Least he could do for me was teach me how to defend myself,' she replied. 'And trust me, he taught me how to kill. There's about three ways I could've killed Madison today, mind you.'

Blaize immediately clasped her hand over her mouth. To her surprise, Siobhan just smirked.

'Not to worry,' Siobhan assured her, 'you seem like a decent person. I trust that you won't be going 'round killing everyone you don't like.' She smiled. 'Plus, it's a great way to keep Madison in check.'

Blaize nodded, and climbed out of bed. She was about to start making her way towards the bathroom to wash her face when there was a loud thump on the door, which was next to Siobhan's bed. Norman and Ben shifted in their beds, but didn't stir.

'Who the heck could that be at this time?' Siobhan wondered aloud. She would've said something else, but then there was a loud crash as the door was turned into splinters.

Siobhan's eyes widened as a large figure stumbled into the room. She gasped.

It was a man in a science lab coat, but his clothes were wrecked and bloodied, his right arm was missing and huge wounds, caused by something inhuman, covered his body. A pair of glowing yellow eyes regarded the teenager with what seemed to be a mixture between hunger and hate.

Suddenly, its jaw dropped, and it let loose a loud, inhuman scream, and leapt at her, tackling her to the ground.

Siobhan tried to push the man off her, but he was surprisingly powerful – his large hand held her throat down with a vice-like grip. He seemed to drool as she tried to fight him, snarling at her. It opened its mouth, revealing a set of razor-sharp jaws, but then there was a deafening bark and suddenly its head exploded.

The thing's grip loosened instantly and Siobhan rolled it off her, wiping the blood off her face away hastily with her hand and almost hyperventilating.

She turned and looked to find Blaize standing there, holding her black assault rifle in her hands, the gun trembling almost as much as she was. Smoke slowly rose from the end of the barrel.

'Jesus! What the hell happened?' Norman exclaimed from his bed as Ben stared, his mouth agape at the corpse of the man- no, the _thing_ that had tried to assault Siobhan.

For a few moments, dead silence reigned as no one spoke, each of the four teenagers trying to gather their wits together. Then, a scream from one of the other dorms could be heard as someone else stumbled into the room.

Blaize immediately trained her rifle on the figure, but then her eyes widened as she recognised who it was.

Mrs. Smith, who watched over the dorms, raised her hands immediately. She was covered in blood.

'Don't shoot, don't shoot!' she blurted out before regaining her wits. 'Sonja! Where the _hell_ did you get that gun?'

Blaize lowered down her rifle.

'Miss! What's going on?' Norman demanded, slipping out of bed and putting on a pair of dark green shorts, a pair of sports shoes and a brown tee shirt.

'I… I don't know! There's some sort of man-beast-_thing_ that's gone around and ripped some of the students apart and- _oh my God!_'

She'd seen the corpse of the man in the room and cupped her hands around her mouth. She started to back up into a wall, and after she'd hit it, she slid down onto the floor, the shock overwhelming her.

'Blaize! Siob! Ben! I don't think that's the last of these guys we're going to see!' Norman said. He ran up to the large, heavy wooden desk in the room and started pulling at it. 'Help me with this! We gotta block the doorway!'

Nodding, Blaize put her rifle back on the bed and helped Siobhan and Ben barricade the room as Mrs. Smith tried to comprehend the situation. Before they could fully close the door with the flat surface of the desk, the four of them could feel the impact of someone slamming on the desk in protest. Screaming could be heard from the other side.

Human, comprehensible screaming. Blaize realized with a tinge of horror that it was Madison.

'OH MY GOD! NORMAN! NORMAN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? LET ME IN!' she was screaming.

Norman turned to the others, a look of shock on his face. He began to pull back on the door, but then Siobhan and Ben pushed back against it.

'You can't, Norm! What if she's one of those things?' Siobhan protested.

'Yeah!' Ben was adding hastily.

'We are _not_ leaving someone outside!' Mrs. Smith suddenly spoke up. She got up and got into a position to help Norman.

'Look, Miss, we don't want to, but we wanna _survive!_' Siobhan pointed out.

'Oh, for God's sakes, Siob! This is _another human being _we're talking about!' Norman spat back. Siobhan just sneered at her brother.

'_You're_ only acting that way because _she_ used to be your girlfriend!' she screamed. 'Chrissakes, Norm! You're going to get us all killed! And for what? A backstabbing bitch?'

'You wouldn't be saying the same if it was Blaize out there!' Norman yelled back. Suddenly, all four of them stopped and immediately turned towards Blaize. Her jaw was hanging agape and her eyes were wide open as the scene unfolded before her eyes.

'Blaize?' Siobhan pleaded, putting on her best "Please?" look. 'Please? Help me and Ben keep this thing _shut!_ You remember what Madison was planning to do to you during Lunch, didn't you?'

'Miss Ignis! You _will_ help me and Norman open this door right now!' Mrs. Smith ordered.

'Oh, for cripe's sakes, Sonja, _DO YOU WANNA DIE!_' Ben yelled.

'HELP! HELP! JESUS, NORM!' Madison screamed. More thudding.

Blaize looked left and right, unsure of what to do. She swallowed. The only person who wasn't either yelling or screaming at her was Norman.

'Blaize. C'mon. I know you're made of better stuff,' Norman calmly told her. 'Do the right thing. No person gets left behind.'

Blaize swallowed as she heard Madison's sobs coming from the other side of the barricade. She shook her head.

'No man gets left behind,' she told herself, and helped with shifting the barricade aside. Siobhan and Ben were pulling on it as hard as they could, but they weren't able to stop it from opening. As soon as there was a large enough gap, Madison squeezed through and stumbled into the room, collapsing on the floor as soon as she was inside, sobbing, and still in pyjamas.

Quickly re-sealing the doorway, Siobhan and Ben stared at Blaize. Ben looked like he was just told he was going to die the next minute. Siobhan gave her a pained look, pointing a shaking finger at Blaize and quivering.

'_I THOUGHT YOU WERE ONE OF US!_' she shrieked, tears already in her eyes. '_YOU RISKED OUR LIVES! YOU RISKED _YOUR _LIFE! AND FOR WHAT! THIS!_' She immediately pointed her shaking finger towards Madison, who was still crying on the floor.

Norman stepped in between the both of them.

'Look, Siob-' he began.

Siobhan immediately turned on her heel and sulked off towards the bathroom, where her sobbing could be heard. Ben just shook his head and walked over back to his bed. Norman sighed and put his hands on Blaize's arms.

'Hey. You did the right thing today,' he comforted her before going after Siobhan. Somehow, she didn't feel like she had.

She knelt down beside Madison and put an arm around her shoulder, stroking her gently.

'Hey. It'll be okay,' she soothed.

At that, Madison looked up. And to Blaize's utmost surprise, sneered at her.

'_You_ think it's going to be okay?' she retorted sarcastically. The venom and the iciness in her voice was beyond surprise. 'Markus and Jeff are… are _dead!_ Or worse! And all this only happened when _you_ showed up!' She brushed away Blaize's arm rudely. 'Get. Off. Me. _Now._'

Blaize recoiled as Madison got up and sulked off to the other side of the room.

For once, she felt alone. For once, doing what felt like the right thing… didn't feel like the right thing.

'We've got to get out of here,' Norman announced. He'd managed to coax a still teary Siobhan from the bathroom, and his loud, confident voice brought all of the others together. 'We can't stay here, that's for sure.'

The others just kept giving each other looks. Siobhan was giving Madison the evils, and Ben seemed almost distant. Soulless. Inside, it was all tearing Blaize apart.

'We have to get us some makeshift weapons,' Norman continued. 'Me and Mrs. Smith will take apart the beds and see what we've got. Ben, Siob, Blaize, get changed, and then check the bags. Take what we need, and nothing more. Madi, stay and keep the barricade there. We'll go on from there. Got it?'

Begrudgingly, everyone else nodded and got to work.

Blaize slipped back into the red Kathmandu jacket and blue jeans she'd been wearing the previous day, as well as donning a pair of socks and plain white Nike shoes. She grabbed her father's lucky combat knife from under her bed, as well as the small box of ammo for her gun.

She noticed Ben slipping on a pair of sand-yellow shorts, black shoes and a red shirt that read "Kiss Me If You Like Pyromaniacs!" in large bold white text. As he noticed her looking at him, he shook his head and looked away.

Shaking her head, Blaize grabbed her knapsack and stuffed in the bits and pieces she could before taking a glance at Siobhan.

Although she could see that Siobhan was still spooked by what had happened earlier, Blaize was relieved to find that she was hastily getting stuff together, putting on a pair of fashionable black boots, a black tee and blue jeans before snatching her bag and doing the same. Catching the look Blaize was giving her, she narrowed her eyes towards her.

'Regretting letting her live after all, hm?' she asked her bitterly, motioning to Madison.

Sighing, Blaize simply zipped up her knapsack.

Minutes later, everyone was set and formed a circle around the middle of the room. Norman and Mrs. Smith had been able to obtain two First Aid kits and enough flashlights for everyone from the bathroom.

Siobhan had managed to snap off one of the ends of her bedpost to use as a stake, Ben had taken out a bottle of deodorant and a lighter as a makeshift flamethrower and had his Glock as a back-up, Mrs. Smith held a broken-off shower head from the bathroom nervously and currently Norman was rolling up a towel "rat's-tail" style to use as a whip, which received raised eyebrows from the others.

'What? It might not be deadly, but at least it's better than nothing,' he shrugged. 'Well, here's the plan as far as I know – we move the desk away from the door, and we try to see if there's anyone else alive in the hostel. After we've checked, we'll make our way to the bus that's in the school parking lot, as Mrs. Smith has the keys – right, Miss?'

Mrs. Smith nodded.

'But Norm,' Ben piped up, gesturing towards the corpse of the thing that had tried to attack Siobhan, 'what do we call _those?_'

Siobhan swallowed.

'I took a closer look at it. The man… he's got the symptoms of The Sickness,' she said, reluctantly. 'Like the chimpanzee. Plus, he's in a Medatech Laboratories scientist's coat. That can only mean one thing.'

Norman nodded.

'I say we call them "Sickened". Best name so far, and we shouldn't be able to underestimate these things by calling them zombies,' he suggested. Everyone else nodded in agreement. 'Ben, since you've got the makeshift flamethrower, you go first. Let's do this.'

Making a quick check that they had everything in order, Blaize, Siobhan and Norman stood ready to move the desk out of the way. Ben readied his makeshift flamethrower and pointed the lighter and deodorant spray can towards the doorway in anticipation.

'On three,' Norman ordered. 'One… two… _three!_'

On the count of three, the three teenagers pulled the desk back. Ben rushed out, looking at both sides of the corridor quickly before looking back inside and nodding.

'It's-'

Before he could finish his sentence, a shadow dropped down from the roof and tackled him to the ground with a loud screech and raised a clawed hand to swipe at his face.

It would've connected were it not for Norman's towel whipping out and wrapping around the thing's wrist with a loud crack. Its head turned towards him, its glowing green eyes turning into an expression of shock and fury, but was immediately introduced to the end of his shoe.

The moment it fell off him, Ben scrambled backwards to get away from the thing, snatching his fallen lighter and deodorant can. Blaize aimed her rifle, but Norman stopped her.

'Save the bullets,' he told her. He raised his towel up and held the end of it in front of Ben's face. 'Ben!'

Understanding Norman's plan, Ben raised the lighter and set the sharp end of Norman's rat's tail alight. Using the fire, Norman whipped at the shadow, igniting a part of the thing's clothing. It reeled back and screeched as what Blaize could identify as its black hoodie caught alight.

As it thrashed about screeching, trying to extinguish the flames, Norman stamped out the fire from the end of his towel.

'Not so useless now, is it?' he said smugly. 'Siob!'

But Siobhan was already moving. She sent the burning thing onto its stomach as soon as its back was to her with an eager boot. She immediately followed that by plunging her stake down into the middle of its neck, and the thing went still, the fire dying out under its body.

Swallowing, Siobhan took the stake out, stood up and looked at the others.

'Woah,' Ben breathed.

'"Woah" indeed,' Norman agreed.

Suddenly, the creature's clawed hand sprung out, gripping Siobhan's ankle. She kicked out, flipping the Sickened over onto its back, but it used its other hand to grab her stake and ripped it free from her grip. It sprung back up onto its feet using its arms and slammed her against the wall of the corridor within the space of five seconds.

Its burnt face screeched at her, but then a fist impacted on the side of its head and it stumbled back down onto the ground. Before it could react, Blaize had drawn out her combat knife, leapt onto its chest and rammed the knife into the side of its throat.

Remembering what had happened with Siobhan, she immediately tore it out, reversed her grip and plunged it straight into the thing's head three times in rapid succession.

She was panting heavily as she ripped the knife free and wiped it on the thing's clothes before sliding it back into its sheath.

'I… oh God… that was Markus!' Madison exclaimed. Blaize recognised the figure under the hood as the boy who had thrown the first punch at her the day before. Madison turned to Blaize. 'You… you _bitch!_'

Madison's reaction caught Blaize off guard. Siobhan, to Blaize's surprise, came to her defence in the form of a very loud slap.

'Can you _shut up_ for even a _few minutes,_ you retarded bitch?' Siobhan snarled immediately afterward, pointing a stern finger in Madison's face. 'We're in the middle of God-knows-what and the last thing we need is some useless piece of shit like you telling _us_ what to do-'

'Siob!' Norman put himself once more in the firing line; this time between his sister and Madison, who was currently dumbstruck. 'That'll do! That'll do.' He sighed. 'Look. Whatever we have going on between each of us at the moment we can get over and done with _after_ we get out of this shithole! Right, guys?' He paused. 'No offence, Miss.'

'That's all fine and good, but we'd better get going,' Mrs Smith said, nodding at Norman. 'I just hope we're not too late.'

At that, Norman nodded. As if to emphasize Mrs. Smith's point, a scream came from a nearby room.

Running ahead, Norman slid across the wall towards the door, which was slightly ajar. The sounds of screaming from a few girls inside could be heard, as well as the screech of one of the Sickened.

He immediately went up to the door and swung it open. Inside, there were three girls, all in their pyjamas, huddled in a corner, with a Sickened in the middle of the room shambling towards them. It turned as soon as it heard the sound and snarled at Norman with blank, milky-white eyes.

'Oi! Over here, asswipe!'

Ducking back outside, Norman held out his hand immediately.

'Siob!' he whispered to his sister. 'Your stake!'

Siobhan threw her brother her weapon, and as he caught it, the Sickened burst out of the door. Norman swung around and impaled it in the solar plexus with the stake, stopping it. He then flung the Sickened into the other side of the corridor, slamming its head into the wooden wall before handing Siobhan her stake back. He let her and Mrs. Smith finish the thing off.

Blaize poked her head inside to see the girls staring back at her.

'Come on,' she told them. 'We gotta get outta here, quick!'

Nodding, the girls made straight for the door and brushed past Blaize as they all simultaneously hugged Norman and started kissing him, much to his embarrassment. Madison simply spat.

'Thankyouthankyou_thankyou, Norm!_' they thanked him, crying with relief. Blaize looked at Ben, who was staring, jaw hanging, at the spectacle.

'_Damn_,' he whistled.

'Okay! Okay, ladies, that includes you, Madi, I need you to go with Mrs. Smith!' Norman told the three girls, pushing them away reluctantly. 'We need you to get to safety! Miss! Get them to the bus!'

Mrs. Smith nodded, and ushered the girls and Madison away towards the stairs on the other end of the hall.

'Wow,' Ben whistled again. 'Norm, you have _got_ to teach me how to do that!'

Norman raised an eyebrow.

'Teach you how to do what?'

Ben was about to reply but instead thought better of the situation and shrugged. 'I'll ask you later.'

With that, the four of them moved to check the other rooms. There were a few Sickened inside each of the rooms, but those were dealt with reasonably easily. Quite a few were people Blaize recognised.

They managed to complete the sweep with only a few minor injuries. The only person who didn't get hit at all by the Sickened was ironically Norman, especially since he was always the first one to enter the rooms. They took everything they could with them, managing to find five more First Aid kits and six more cans of deodorant for Ben.

In total, they were able to rescue twenty students, not including themselves. It was terrifying for each of them, but they managed to get the job done.

They made it out of the building and into the parking lot, where the bus, already running and lit up, was waiting. They climbed aboard, with a large Maori student in the bus driver's seat, with Mrs. Smith standing next to him.

'I reckon that's it, Miss,' Blaize reported. 'Building's clear. Let's go.'

The bus driver reached out for the lever next to his seat and closed the doors to the bus.

'We're going to go straight to the city,' Mrs. Smith told Norman. 'We'll get to the closest hospital we can find and get checks done. You remember Michael, from Homeroom? Turns out, he's just got his bus-driving licence.'

Nodding, Norman led Blaize, Ben and Siobhan to a spot left for them near the front of the bus, where they collapsed down onto the seats – Siobhan sitting next to Blaize and Ben next to Norman behind them. Their endeavour had taken a good deal out of them.

The bus started up and drove hastily out of St. Monica's College, leaving the school abandoned for whatever Sickened remained in there.

Siobhan immediately pulled out a First Aid kit, opened it and took out a roll of dressings.

'Hold still, Blaize – there's a gash in your arm.'

Blaize looked down to find that indeed there was a large gash down her upper right arm. She was shocked – she hadn't even felt it. It was only now she could feel it, and she cringed at the pain.

'So… you're not… mad at me anymore?' Blaize asked her. Siobhan shook her head.

'I…' Siobhan stopped and pondered for a second before continuing. 'I-I still am. Kinda. Sorta. Bah. I think a good deal of that went away when I slapped Madison.'

She coughed nervously as Blaize smirked.

'This'll have to do,' Siobhan continued, beginning her work with the dressing. As she wrapped it around slowly in an anticlockwise fashion, Blaize felt like she was staring at a pendulum swinging around and around in a circle. 'A few wraps of this, a few happy thoughts…' Siobhan tied it off, patted Blaize on the back and gave her a warm smile. '…there.'

'Thanks,' Blaize smiled back before sarcastically adding, 'I feel better already.'

Siobhan smirked before producing a small box of Panadol from the First Aid kit and a water bottle from her bag.

'Here. Take these,' she said, handing Blaize the bottle and Paracetamol before adding with a smile that accentuated her cute button nose: 'Doctor's orders.'

'Hey, can I get some of that, too?' Ben whined. 'I think my thigh's got a boo boo…'

Siobhan sighed, produced another bottle of water and another box of Panadol and instead irreverently shoved them into his face.

'Here,' she said, not taking her gaze off Blaize.

'Drat. Y'can't blame a boy for trying,' Ben muttered, taking the medicine and water dejectedly.

At that, Blaize and Siobhan started quietly laughing.

The bus had made good time in getting to Auckland City itself, but once they were in the city, they were caught up in traffic.

Blaize had rested her head on Siobhan's shoulder and had been napping when a voice woke her up.

**Take… a last look… at your beloved city…** it snarled in a strangled voice.

Waking up immediately, she startled Siobhan as she sat back up straight and looked around the bus for the source of the voice. She couldn't find it.

'Did… did you hear that?' she asked Siobhan, who shrugged.

'Hear what?' Siobhan asked. 'I didn't hear anything.'

Blaize nervously looked around the bus. The other students were either sleeping or talking to one another quietly about things. Outside, through the windows, she realized that the bus was travelling through Queen Street – she recognised the particular assortment of shops with their neon signs and lights on brightly outside. She checked her watch.

It was strange. It was eight in the morning – about one hour after they'd escaped from St. Monica's College – and yet it was still dark.

**The darkness will fall… when the Sickness comes to call…** that blasted unholy voice spoke in her head.

It was scaring her.

'Who are you?' she said out loud. 'What do you want from me?'

Some of the students that were awake were giving her strange looks, Siobhan and Norman included. Ben probably would've done the same were he not snoring away peacefully, blissfully unaware of what was happening.

**Foolish girl… only you can hear me…** the voice mocked. **Your end was recorded… when you discovered me…**

'Blaize? You okay?' Siobhan asked her. 'You're scaring me.'

Blaize swallowed and held her forehead like she was having a headache. In a sense, she _was_ having a headache.

'I… it's nothing,' she lied. 'Just probably the side effect of the Panadol, 'sall.'

It was at that moment she felt a sharp pain in her head. She immediately doubled over, and closed her eyes, groaning as the pain seemed excruciating.

'My God! Is she alright?' Mrs. Smith asked in a worried tone. Siobhan grabbed Blaize's rifle.

'I… I think she's turning!' she said, fumbling with the bulky thing, sheer terror crossing her face.

**Welcome… to the fold…_Blaize__…_** the sickened voice sneered inside of her head. **Oh… by the way, since I can hardly use you if you are damaged… _duck._**

It was at that she rose out of her seat, her eyelids still trembling.

'Blaize… I don't want to do this…' Siobhan started, her voice and her grip on the rifle shaking, 'but…'

Blaize's eyes opened, and she turned towards Siobhan.

To Siobhan's horror, instead of her usual red irises, her eyes now glowed fully red. She was about to pull the trigger on Blaize's assault rifle when suddenly, Blaize's facial features softened, and a loud scream ripped itself from her lips.

Then, as if on cue, a loud, deep inhuman roar came from the direction Blaize stared at.

The bus had stopped in front of an alleyway. And as Siobhan turned to look at the source of the loud roar, she realized that Blaize wasn't looking at her. She was now looking at the gigantic _thing_ that was thundering down the alleyway. It was a Sickened, but the size of a jeep.

'What the fu-' Norman began, but was interrupted by a loud screech of metal as the monstrosity picked up a white car with ease and, with another loud roar, lobbed it at the top of the bus.

Norman immediately ducked down below his seat, and Siobhan managed to pull Blaize down with her just in time as the vehicular projectile slammed into the roof of the bus, the screeching sound of metal filling her ears. In that moment, confusion and shock took over in a nauseating second.

The force of the impact caused Blaize to slip, her head colliding against a pole and knocking her unconscious. With a loud explosion the car's ruptured fuel tank ignited, and burning fuel streamed down from the crumpled roof of the bus as screams echoed filled the night.

The Sickness had come to Auckland City.


	2. Part Two

Author's Note: This section, as I've said before, has been revised, although it's mostly corrections and bits and pieces that I believe enhance the characters' personalities. Thanks for reading thus far, and please, give me criticism. I feed off the stuff :D

_Part Two: Auckland City, New Zealand, 1:10 AM, 20th December, 2012_

Once again, Blaize woke.

This time, however, she wasn't back home or even at the hostel of St. Monica's College. She was on a surface of neatly grooved steel, on her stomach, and in clothes that she'd wear while going out.

Not only that, the smell of ashes and burnt flesh now filled her nostrils, and a liquid dripped on the back of her head.

Drip. Seconds passed. Drip. Minutes. Drip. Drip.

It was that which had revived her to a dim awareness as the dripping sound continued to fill her ears.

She tried to roll onto her back, but then all of a sudden every part of her began to feel awfully sore. But she wouldn't let it stop her from seeing what was going on. She tried again. After a few more attempts, she finally managed to roll onto her back. But it was then she saw something that caused her eyes to widen in shock.

The bus was upside down. The grooved steel she saw as she regained consciousness was the roof of the bus. And above her were the mangled corpses of her schoolmates entangled amongst the seats and broken windows. The liquid that was dripping on the back of her head before now continued to drip next to her. It was blood.

She was having trouble fighting the sheer sense of panic that was rising inside of her when she heard the shuffling of feet outside of the bus wreck.

Was it the others that had survived the attack?

A head popped into view by one of the windows.

It snarled at her. She realized instantly that it was a Sickened. She could tell by its creepy, milky-white blank eyes, as well as the fact that it was sporting a massive gash that crossed its face that looked far too deep for any normal human to survive.

She'd been surprised to find that during her sweep of the St. Monica's hostel that the majority of the Sickened they had encountered were ones like these, rather than the yellow-eyed one that had initially attacked Siobhan or the green-eyed one that attacked Ben.

Accurately guessing that it would only try to kill her as the rest of the Sickened back at St. Monica's College had tried to before, she quickly reached out from her position on the ruined bus for something she could use as a weapon, panic setting in as the thing started climbing in, drool dripping off its chin as it seemed to savour its next meal. Her knife and her gun were gone.

The fingers from her right hand grasped something hard and cold. She pulled it on desperately with all of her might, adrenaline giving her strength.

After a few tries, it came free, a liquid spraying all over the area as it did, that and the weight of it causing her to assume that it was a fuel pipe. The momentum forced her right arm to arc around her body to her left, which caused her makeshift weapon to strike the Sickened directly on the head just in time with the satisfying crack of bone breaking - the impact caused it to retreat back out through the window.

The only thing that she saw after that was that the Sickened screeched at the cloudless night sky after it was free of the ruins of the bus, most likely to attract more of its misbegotten kind.

Exhausted, Blaize lost most of the control over her right arm. As it fell onto her chest, she looked at the weapon she had miraculously acquired in the moonlight.

She then dropped it in shock and screamed as she identified it.

It wasn't a fuel pipe. It was the arm of the bus driver, Michael. She could tell by the tattoos. And it was still bleeding.

Her scream must've renewed the Sickened's vigour, because almost seconds after she screamed, its ugly head reappeared at the window, a fragment of its skull sticking out from the top of its head. It decided to make another assault, this time by going prone and crawling its way in to make the whole process easier. Blaize was beginning to hate the circumstances she was in as she reached for the arm again.

This time, however, the Sickened grabbed it before she did and tossed it aside as it continued its crawl towards her.

Blaize knew that this time, she was done for. There was nothing she could use as a weapon now.

Suddenly, it stopped just in front of her, its arms thrashing to try and grab her before being dragged backwards out the window by some unknown force. She watched as the Sickened was dumped outside. She then saw the end of a gun barrel shoved it its face.

She turned away as she heard the suppressed sound of the thing going off.

She opened her eyes and looked back out the window to find a pair of booted feet standing where the Sickened had been, as well as a black cape or cloak – she wasn't sure. The figure then squatted down.

Blaize was greeted by a black gas mask that stared back at her.

'What the _frak_ are you doing in there?' a man's rough, ragged voice came from behind the mask, just loud enough for her to hear. 'Hell, are you even _alive?_'

He pointed his gun at her – she could tell that it was a military-style machine gun, and that if he opened fire now, she was definitely screwed. To her surprise, the machine gun had a silencer on it – or, as her father insisted, was "suppressed". She raised her hands in the air as much as she could. For some reason, he seemed familiar.

'Ye… yes, I… I guess I am…' she managed. The figure nodded.

'Stay right there. You don't sound like you're in any shape to pull yourself out. I'm coming in.'

Blaize swallowed as the figure went prone and started to crawl towards her slowly.

She realized that it wasn't a cloak or cape that the man wore – it was a black leather trench coat. He'd left the machine gun outside, and now extended a gloved hand towards her, which she took. In one slow move he dragged her out.

Blaize winced as her body ran over a few sharp edges in the bus, but she managed to keep quiet. Whoever this stranger was, he somehow radiated a sense of… she couldn't describe it. It was as if she could feel that the man had been through more battles than she had birthdays, even if it was only a slight feeling. She didn't want to startle her rescuer.

She also found that, to her surprise, as she was being dragged out, she felt her strength returning to her.

'So… wha… what happened?' she asked her rescuer as he pulled her slim form out of the bus carefully. 'And… and who are you?'

The figure stopped pulling, and the gas mask looked at her. But she realized that it wasn't because he was about to answer her question.

Instantly, the man dropped Blaize's hands, spun around and grabbed the wrist of someone who'd snuck up behind him and squeezed hard enough to cause her to cry out and drop her weapon – a wooden stake. He used his other hand to pluck the stake out from mid-air, quickly reversed his grip on it, and had the end of it pointed towards the girl's throat in seconds.

'You have exactly half a minute to tell me why I shouldn't kill you for holding a sharp object to my frakking back,' the stranger snarled from behind the mask. 'I've gutted worse low-life frakkers than you, you can be assured. Your time… starts… _now_.'

'_You_ have _three seconds_ to take that stake away from my sister's throat, sir, or I will use an assault rifle to shoot you in the head,' the familiar of Norman Skibursky said with an icy authority. '_Your_ time… starts… _now_.'

Blaize looked up and realized that it was Siobhan who'd tried to get at the stranger with the knife, and that her Grandpa Bill's assault rifle's barrel was now pointed inches away from the stranger's head from the top of the bus. The stranger shook his head.

'Frakking kids,' he muttered, immediately taking the stake away from Siobhan's throat reluctantly. He turned towards the source of the gun barrel. 'Fine. I surrender.'

Norman leapt down from the top of the ruined bus, keeping the barrel pointed towards the man. He handed the gun to Siobhan, who kept the gun trained on the stranger as she crouched down next to Blaize.

'Blaize? Is that you?' Siobhan asked her uneasily. 'Or have you turned?'

Blaize raised an eyebrow as she managed to prop herself on her elbows.

'I… I'm pretty sure I'm fine now…' she replied.

'One question, just to make sure you're not some_thing_ else trying to pass off as my friend,' Siobhan said. 'Which kindergarten did the both of us go to?'

The stranger in the gas mask scoffed.

'If your friend's already turned and could speak, we'd be dead already, you frak-wit!' he pointed out. 'The Sickness turns you into one of those frakking zombies within _minutes!_ There's no way she couldn't have been bitten already!'

Blaize swallowed.

'We… we went to kindergarten together?' she wondered aloud.

Siobhan shrugged.

'That'll do,' she said and offered a hand, which she took. 'You okay?'

Blaize dusted herself off.

'You ask me that _after_ you get me back up?' she asked her without sarcasm. Again, Siobhan shrugged.

'Well, wouldn't make much sense to ask if you'd turned and I had to shoot you,' she replied. 'Not that I wanted to, of course.'

Even though Siobhan was talking to her, Blaize couldn't help but observe her surroundings while she listened.

Her heart sank as she did so.

Queen Street had transformed from the last few times she'd seen it. Where once there were flashy and vibrant stores, there were ruins. Where people had walked, there were corpses. Where there had been order, chaos. Light, dark, save for the nightlight of the world above and the occasional still-working pilot light illuminating the nightmarish involuntary transformation of the once-great Auckland City from below.

Car wrecks, corpses, rubble and rubbish were scattered across the street, almost like the forgotten, dejected toys of a child. But even Blaize knew that forgotten toys still had some sentimental value in their owners' hearts, and that the attack, the sheer hell that had been unleashed upon _her_ new city, had hit far, far too close to home.

'Hey! While you fullas keep talking amongst yourselves, you ought to remember that we're stuck in the middle of the street in the middle of a frakking _zombie apocalypse!_' the stranger pointed out, breaking her reverie irreverently.

Blaize and Siobhan turned towards him. Norman still had the gun trained on the man.

'And just who are you, exactly?' Norman inquired.

The figure shrugged. 'Introductions can come later. We'd better get to my safehouse first.'

Blaize looked around and remembered something.

'Where's Ben?' she asked, dread filling her.

Siobhan and Norman looked at her.

'I… we… we didn't find him,' Siobhan said.

'Wait,' the stranger interjected and turning towards Blaize, 'would this "Ben" happen to have red hair like yours and be wearing a red tee with the words "Kiss Me If You Like Pyromaniacs!"?'

The three teenagers turned towards the man.

'That's him,' Blaize replied. 'Where is he?'

'My safehouse – he's unconscious, but alive,' he replied. Blaize's hopes were re-ignited. 'We'd better get going before these frakking zombies come for us.'

'Sickened. We call them Sickened,' Norman corrected. 'Where is this safehouse of yours?'

'You fullas can follow me there. Just let me pick up my weapon and we can get going.'

Norman turned towards Siobhan and Blaize, who both nodded. They didn't need any further enemies in this situation. Siobhan bent down to pick up the machine gun, but it proved too heavy for her. The man snorted humorously and picked it up with ease.

'Follow me,' he ordered them. 'And be quiet. These… "Sickened", as you call them, are sensitive to sound.'

Nodding, the three teenagers began to follow him. Norman passed Blaize her assault rifle back, intending to use her knife and his towel whip as a weapon.

As she took the object back in her hands, her eyes widened.

'_Sonja Fiore Ignis! Where are you?'_

_Sixteen-year-old Sonja Ignis was still staring at the object she now held in her hands when she heard the voice. She was so enthralled by the object that she didn't hear the sound of footsteps behind her._

'_Ah, there you are,' Bill "Jr." Overbeck's voice came from behind her._

_Sonja, her trance broken by her father's words, raised her head slightly as she realized what was going on. She was on her knees, staring at and cradling the black metallic object she knew was a gun in her hands in the middle of her father's office all the way back home. Back in Nashville, Tennessee. _

'_I've been looking for you everywhere,' her father continued, his footsteps getting closer. 'I think I found those school books you came up here to look fo-'_

_Suddenly, Bill Jr. stopped, and Sonja's mind started to race at what that meant._

Oh_, shit, she thought. _He's seen the gun.

_A short period of silence reigned. Sonja reckoned that she was in trouble. Instead, to her surprise, her father just smiled at the nervous grin she now gave him._

'_So, you found your Grandpa Bill's old M16A1 Vietnam-Issue Assault Rifle, eh?' he chuckled, crouching down next to her. He ran his hand through his short blonde hair before continuing. 'Last time this baby saw action was three years ago, back in Iraq when your Grandpa Bill gave it to me as a gift.' Sonja raised an eyebrow curiously._

'_Are… are we going to keep it, dad?' she asked him. 'Or are we going to get this back to Grandpa Bill?'_

_A smile spread across his lean, shaven face._

'_Definitely keeping it. The New Zealand Government's letting us keep it – especially after those medals I got during Operation: Desert Storm. You remember what happened, right?'_

_Sonja took in a deep breath through clenched teeth._

'_You got an Army Distinguished Service Cross. You almost got killed when a grenade landed in a gun nest and you decided to throw it back at the terrorists who threw it in the first place.' She motioned to his left shoulder. 'Ten pieces of shrapnel got stuck in your shoulder – Mum said you were technically FUBAR,' she said, before adding with a smirk, ' and another piece of shrapnel would've gone into your left eye if it wasn't for the BCGs you were wearing at the time.'_

_It was at that Sergeant Bill Jr. Jarrett Overbeck recoiled, looking offended._

'_Those glasses were lucky glasses!' he protested. Sonja started giggling._

'Now_ I remember where Ben got his dorkiness from,' she said. Her father just smiled at her remarks._

'_I'm amazed you actually remember all those military terms, Sonja,' he smiled, ruffling up her hair a bit with a hand. He chuckled. 'Hell, I'm not even sure if I even taught you all of those.'_

_Sonja smiled approvingly._

'_Learned some of them from Mum,' she explained. 'So. You reckon moving to this… this New Zealand's going to be a good idea, dad?'_

_Bill Jr. nodded._

'_Of course. The place is brilliant, I've heard. Once they approve our immigration papers we're good to go from there.'_

_He put a firm hand on the gun before turning his gaze towards Sonja, his weathered blue eyes looking into her red eyes intently and then smiling again. 'Enough of that, though. You wanna try this baby out at the firing range?'_

_Sonja nodded._

'_Sure, Dad,' she said, giving her father an uncertain smile, although it was more to stay out of trouble rather than her desire to fire the thing. However, that opinion changed after she'd had a chance to try it out at the firing range, her face beaming with joy like a child opening presents on Boxing Day every time she'd hit a target._

Right now, her mouth was curving into such a smile as she fingered the single word etched on the right side of the grip: BOHICA. She didn't know what it meant, though, other than the fact that it had something to do with pain.

She'd handled the gun before, of course – but having it put back into her hands triggered the memories. Then she realized that the disturbing thing was that the memories were extremely vivid – as if she _were_ there. _That_ hadn't happened before.

Did it have something to do with the voice in her head? She didn't know. It was something to think about later.

They set off for the side of the street as silently as they could.

Although Blaize was able to crawl across the ruins while making minimal sound thanks to basic training from her father, Norman and Siobhan weren't doing so well.

After a minute of making their way past the ruins, Siobhan suddenly slipped on a severed hand that was missing a thumb, and cried out as she fell onto a car.

If the cry she let out wasn't enough, the wrecked car's alarm was still on and functioning. It blared loudly as they all cringed. Siobhan picked herself up, but it was already too late. The loud screech of Sickened from the ruins of the city echoed out across the streets.

The stranger readied his machine gun.

'Shit,' he cursed. 'Now you've frakking done it. Get ready to fight. Stay together. You,' he pointed to Blaize, 'get that gun ready. The both of you,' he signalled towards Norman and Siobhan, 'use those makeshift weapons of yours when they get too close.'

Nodding, they all backed up to cover each other's backs, the howling of the Sickened chilling them to the very bone.

The first of the Sickened burst out of the shadows, snarling at them as they charged, all of them milky-eyed. Blaize aimed for their heads and opened fire, making sure that every shot counted. She heard the suppressed fire of the stranger's machine gun as he let loose upon the encroaching infected.

Even so, Blaize realized that not only were the Sickened were tenacious, they learned quickly – for every one that fell, two filled in its place, using the dead as cover. There was nothing the survivors could do except wait in anticipation for the eventual melee.

As Blaize shot another round into the chest of an approaching Sickened and looked behind it after a few minutes of continuous firing, she felt a glimmer of hope. There were no more behind the rest of the horde.

She was immediately thrust back into the situation when she noticed the Sickened she'd shot close its jaws around her left forearm. Pain instantly shot up her arm, and she rifle butted the thing on the head with her weapon, which caused it to stumble back.

She held the wound on her arm and grimaced, but her expression was immediately replaced by one of surprise when she saw the Sickened that had bitten her.

It was cupping its face with its hands and screeching at the ground, writhing in pain. As Blaize watched it, Siobhan, who noticed what had happened, immediately dug her stake into the thing's head, killing it.

But even as it lay dead, Blaize couldn't help but stare at the Sickened's corpse.

From what she saw, its mouth was leaking green-tinted blood, and it sure as hell wasn't hers.

'Uh-oh…' the stranger said. The three teenagers ignored him.

'Blaize! You alright?' Siobhan asked Blaize as she examined her wound. 'Norman, hand me some dressings, willya? Quick!'

Blaize didn't reply. She just kept staring at that particular corpse.

Norman, after handing Siobhan a roll of dressings, followed her gaze and walked towards the corpse, squatted down in front of it so that Blaize's view was obscured, and examined it.

'Holy _shit_…' he breathed. 'What the _hell_ is this?'

The stranger approached the corpse, although he remained alert, and after Siobhan had bandaged Blaize, she followed.

'This… this isn't like anything I've seen before…' Norman continued. 'Blaize? I think you might wanna have a look at this.'

Upon hearing his words, she snapped out of her trance and went over to the corpse.

What she saw wasn't pretty at all. Norman had moved the Sickened's hands, and now, she saw that its mouth was sizzling. It was as if acid had been thrown on its teeth. The stench of rotting flesh and boiled blood wafted into Blaize's nostrils, and she covered her nose with her hand.

'How the heck did this happen?' Norman asked to no one in particular. 'This looks fresh to me.'

'Blaize got bitten by that one,' Siobhan said as she looked at the corpse.

Norman and the stranger glanced up at Blaize.

'How the-' Norman started, but he was interrupted by a loud, bestial roar from further up the street.

Ripping their attention towards the sound, it was obvious that behind the masses of wrecked cars and other detritus strewn across the street, something big, and obviously inhuman, was coming straight for them as the ground started to shake from its weight.

The four of them were brought out of their shock by the following sound of a car crash just like the one she'd heard before she'd been knocked unconscious.

'TANK!' the stranger cried out.

As a wrecked white car flung out of the shadows and into the moonlight towards them, Blaize instinctively leapt to her right while the others leapt to the left just seconds before the automotive projectile skidded through the spot they had been standing in seconds ago.

Blaize regained her footing and looked up, her eyes widening as she saw it.

Even in the shadows, she could outline a silhouette of a Sickened about the size of a jeep approaching, a pair of glowing green eyes bobbing up and down furiously in the dark as it approached. But now, she could smell it – the combined stench of vomit, blood and other, biological, disgusting substances making their assault on her nose almost making her gag.

And then it erupted out of the shadows of the buildings and into the moonlight, where she could see in detail what this thing was.

It was humanoid, but that was where the similarities between what this thing was and humans ended. It travelled on two giant arms, each the size of a man, much like a gorilla. Its head, tiny in comparison to the rest of its body, was nestled in the middle of the thing's massive upper-body, and there were rotting patches across its skin, all leaking greenish blood and streams of pus.

As it charged towards Blaize, she aimed towards it and squeezed the trigger. It roared again, revealing a missing lower jaw, and brought one massive arm back to punch her.

Diving to her right, she dodged the punch, and as she landed, she realized that this thing wasn't slow. When she looked up again, she saw its massive fists were already raised up above its head, and her eyes widened as she realized that this Sickened was about to crush her.

Before it could, however, a hail of bullets from the stranger's machine gun interrupted it, and it turned on him instead, giving Blaize time to regain her footing and start firing.

Luckily enough for him, the stranger dodged the Sickened's overhead blow as it pulverized the ground he had been standing on seconds before. It ripped out a piece of road and flung it at Norman and Siobhan, who dived out of the way just in time as the massive projectile embedded itself into another wrecked car.

After taking a few swipes at the stranger, the thing grabbed the front of a nearby wrecked car and attempted to swipe the man with it, who flung himself flat on the ground to avoid getting hit. Using the momentum of the car, the thing flung the vehicular weapon towards Blaize, who dived to the ground once more as the wreck passed over her head by inches, landing into a ruined shop with a nearly deafening crash.

And then it charged Blaize again.

She rolled on the ground to her left, just barely avoiding it, stood up and turned to fire a few more shots only to be met by a punch to the stomach from the monster, which sent her flying across the street.

It was like she had been hit by a train. As her body crumpled to avoid as much damage as possible, she maintained her grip on her assault rifle, but it was all she could do. She knocked the stranger onto his back as she flew backwards.

She landed on her back, but then the momentum carried her over backwards and onto her stomach, her weapon just within her reach. The pain in her stomach was excruciating.

'_Blaize!_' Siobhan's voice rang out.

Someone grabbed her wrists. She looked up and saw Siobhan there, pulling her up.

'Come on! You've got to get up! That thing is coming over here _right now!_' she said hurriedly.

'Siob! Quickly, your stake!' Norman shouted.

Siobhan quickly threw Norman her stake as Blaize saw through blurry vision that the giant Sickened was almost upon them. And then Norman stepped in between them like a hero.

He whipped the monstrosity's head with his towel, managing to hit its eye with the end of his towel, which caused it to stop and hold its face, before whipping it again on its throat, letting go of it at moment it connected. As the thing doubled over, he leapt upwards and scrambled onto its back, taking out Blaize's knife and digging both knife and stake into the thing's head.

It staggered back and roared until Norman stabbed it five more times in quick succession, after which it stopped, and with one last roar, it collapsed. Unfortunately, this caused Norman to tumble forward and cry out before he involuntarily planted his face into the ground.

Siobhan continued to help Blaize up as Norman and the stranger managed to pick themselves up.

'Frak me,' the stranger said, dusting himself off. 'You kids are better than I thought – especially you,' he said to Norman. 'Where the _frak_ did you learn how to Tank-ride like that?'

Norman nodded as he brushed a bit of dirt from his face where it had been grazed by the concrete.

'I'm not too sure, actually,' he admitted with a small smile. 'Just… did it. It's surprisingly like bull-riding back in Rainbow's End, when they first set it up.'

'You… you bull-ride?' Blaize groaned as she got up. Norman grinned at her.

'Yeah. When they put it in last year. I was a natural at it, so the Rainbow's End "Bull-Shifters" told me,' he chuckled. 'I do plenty of things well the first time, you know.'

'Okay, that's good and all, but we'd better get going,' Siobhan interjected before turning to the stranger. 'How far's the safehouse?'

'Not too far,' the stranger replied before pointing towards the Kathmandu store. It's up there.'

Nothing else needed to be said. The four made for the store as fast as they could with Blaize's injury.

Climbing up the escalator steps, the stranger pushed aside a large, dark green cloth and revealed a red steel door that led into the safehouse within. They stumbled into the room as the man shut the door behind them.

The safehouse was well-lit, with mattresses, sleeping bags and piles of unused clean clothes in the left back corner of the store, weapons and ammo assorted in neat pile, a radio in the front left corner, and an open door that led to the toilet in the back. Blaize noticed a makeshift shower inside the toilet, and two fridges and a large cupboard in the right corner, with a camp burner in the middle of the room. It was currently gently simmering a pot, the refreshing smell of potato soup wafting into her nose.

To her relief, Ben was in the room on one of the mattresses, snoring loudly. Blaize hobbled up to him as fast as she could along with the others and knelt down beside him, the stranger following after he'd barricaded the door. There was a large bruise on Ben's forehead, but thankfully enough there weren't any further injuries.

'Ben?' she said, shaking him. 'Ben, you… okay?'

It was after a few seconds Ben stirred.

'Gah… what happened?' he groaned as he stirred, sitting upright. 'Where the bloody hell am I?'

'You're in a safe place, kid,' the stranger spoke up. 'I suppose introductions are in order.' He extended a gauntleted hand towards Norman. 'Sergeant Thaddeus-'

'-Cyrus,' Blaize finished for him instinctively, memories she thought were gone rushing back. 'New Zealand Army… some kind of special division called the "Rough Riders". Heavy Weapons.'

Everyone just stared at her. Even behind the gas mask Blaize could easily guess that Sergeant Cyrus' mouth was hanging open.

'How… _the frak…_ _did you know that?_' he managed.

It was then Blaize realized what it was she was doing. She coughed nervously.

'My dad used to work alongside heavy weapons specialists,' she began to explain, pulling random things out of her head as quickly as possible. 'Not many people know how to suppress machine guns effectively except for the specialists.' She motioned towards Sergeant Cyrus' weapon as she spoke. 'Plus, there's the military rank.'

Norman snapped out of his daze and immediately shook the sergeant's hand.

'Norman Skibursky, student at St. Monica's College,' Norman he introduced himself, hoping it would change the mood. 'Excellence-Achiever. With me's my sister, Siobhan, and our friends, Ben and Sonja Ignis. All students, by the way, sir.'

Sergeant Cyrus coughed, regaining his composure.

'You sure know how to treat the right fullas with the right level of respect, kid,' he noted, slightly sarcastically, but with a hint of respect. It seemed as if he'd wisely blanked what Blaize had said earlier out of his mind.

'What exactly _are_ you doing here?' Blaize asked, keeping down the pain from her stomach. 'It sure looks like you plan on staying here for a while.'

'Very observant of you,' the sergeant replied, giving her a respectful nod before removing his gas mask. 'I stationed myself here to help any survivors still trapped in the city get out. Alive. A penance for past sins, you might say.'

He was growing a short beard, but the multiple scars on his face explained better than words that he was obviously no stranger to battle.

An eye patch over his left eye covered a lost eye, explained by a large, straight scar across his face from the bottom right cheek that crossed his eye patch.

The remaining one was looking at the teenagers wearily, as if he'd seen far too much of the horrors of the Sickness to fully trust them.

'Could you hold still for a second?' he told Blaize, who nodded. 'I used to be a medic. I've gotta check the extent of your injury.'

With that, he knelt down before her.

'Tell me if this hurts,' he said, before pressing firmly on the area of her stomach that had received the worst damage from the Tank's punch.

She swore immediately after closing her eyes tightly. The sergeant nodded and lifted her jacket.

Even his eye widened as he saw the large, sickly greenish bruise on her belly.

'What the _frak-_'

Blaize's eyes opened. They were glowing red. She snarled and gripped the sergeant's neck, and with strength, speed and fury that shocked all of them, picked him up and rammed him into the wall. Sergeant Cyrus struggled to breathe as the others ran to help the man.

'Shit! Blaize, what the _hell_ are you doing?' Norman demanded.

At this, she turned towards him; her now-glowing red eyes gave him the most evil evils he'd ever experienced in his life. He stopped and started to back off, as did Siobhan and Ben.

And then, suddenly, her facial muscles loosened, and the red glow retreated back into her eyes, shock crossing her face. And then her arm started quivering.

Blaize looked towards her arm to find that her hand was wrapped around Sergeant Cyrus' throat, and immediately dropped him, where he coughed on the ground. She stared at her hands.

'What… what the _hell_ just happened?' she wondered aloud in shock.

'Blimey… I've known for you to get pissed, but _this_…' Ben gaped. Siobhan and Norman were also gaping.

'You're… you're turning!' Norman managed at last. Blaize shot him a surprised look.

'No… she isn't…' Sergeant Cyrus gasped. The four teenagers looked at him as he stood up. 'You… you kept hearing voices in your head, didn't you? Memories becoming so vivid that you could swear you were in them?'

Blaize gasped.

'How… how did you know?'

Sergeant Cyrus swallowed.

'Back when I was guarding the Medatech Laboratories yesterday morning, something went wrong,' he explained. 'The thing escaped. I was out looking for survivors, but couldn't find any. I came back to the compound to find that my friend, Captain Cale, had been mauled by the creature. He'd turned.'

'What 's this gotta do with Sonja?' Ben asked.

'Everything,' Sergeant Cyrus replied. 'They were wandering around, confused. I was able to stay silent enough to watch what was going on. They complained they had been hearing voices in their heads. Memories becoming so vivid that they thought they were real. That their injuries were… _regenerating_, albeit at a slow pace.

'I watched as they turned into the very worst this frakking disease has to offer. Their eyes turned glowing yellow. They could speak. But the most horrific thing came when more of the New Zealand Army rolled up to cleanse the place. When the soldiers entered the compound, they leapt upon them. One man wearing Juggernaut combat armour – newly-designed armour with ten layers of thick Kevlar – got ripped apart by one of those motherfrakkers like he was tissue paper. Bullets bounced off their skin as well.'

Sergeant Cyrus shuddered as he remembered.

'But here's the thing; you didn't fully turn into one of them,' he told Blaize. 'After their eyes turned glowing yellow, they didn't revert back. They _stayed_ yellow. You… your eyes were glowing red. I'm not sure what that means completely, but as far as I know, you've been able to retain your humanity.'

'But… but… I killed one of those yellow-eyed Sickened, back at the St. Monica's College Hostel!' Blaize pointed out. 'I killed it with a few rounds to its head!'

'Then you must've been very, very lucky,' Sergeant Cyrus replied. 'And if you faced these things over at your school, it's probably where you got infected.'

Blaize immediately realized something. She looked at her right arm at the bandage that Siobhan had wrapped around the gash she'd received from one of the Sickened that was infesting St. Monica's College.

'So… so how come Ben, Norman and Siobhan haven't turned yet?' she asked him.

Sergeant Cyrus nodded.

'It was a good thing I remembered a bit of info from those frakking scientists back in the Medatech Labs. They hypo… hypoth… bah, _guessed_ that the reason why the disease wasn't so widespread amongst animals was because they had something that made them immune to the disease. They reckoned that humans were the same. Wouldn't be surprised if they're right.'

Siobhan nodded.

'So… what was wrong with Blaize before?'

Sergeant Cyrus shrugged.

'Not sure. Probably the Sickness taking control. Or it could be her period. Ladies are like that. _Especially_ my ex.' He smirked at that. 'Actually, if you meant her injury, I'm pretty sure it's internal bleeding. She's going to need some rest if my theory on her having regeneration properties is right, or else it's going to get a whole lot worse.'

'How… how much worse?' Blaize asked him. The sergeant shrugged and made his way towards the pot of potato soup that was bubbling on the camp burner.

'You could die,' he simply replied, not looking back. 'Or you'll end up feeling so much pain that either you'll want to kill yourself or end up lagging behind too much for the group. Better stay here until I get orders from my superior. _Damn_. I'll be frakked. Cooked _perfectly,_ even after twenty minutes of being left alone.'

The four teenagers raised eyebrows at him until he turned around with a soup spoon in his hand.

'Well, better make yourselves comfortable, kids,' he added. 'It's gonna be a long night.'

Half an hour after dinner, after having a few quick showers and getting changed into cleaner clothes from the clothing pile, Siobhan helped Blaize lie down onto a mattress before lying down next to her. Norman was busy looking at the weapons Sergeant Cyrus had in the safehouse and deciding which ones to choose, and Ben was listening to a few of Sergeant Cyrus' war stories intently.

'Blaize?' Siobhan asked. 'Do you think things will go ever go back to normal?'

Blaize turned on her mattress and smiled at her.

'Yeah. Of course. "I'll bring peace back on Earth if I have to kill every one of these bastards with my own bare goddamn hands,"' she replied, quoting a character from an old game she used to play.

Siobhan just smirked at her, but then sighed.

'Well, do you think your parents are going to be fine? You know, in Fairfield?'

Blaize's eyes looked deep into Siobhan's for a few seconds before she rolled onto her back, gently pushed aside a few strands of her long, moist hair and sighed.

'I hope so. And even if there are Sickened over in America, Dad and Grandpa Bill sure know their way around guns, that's for sure. What about your parents? Where are they?'

Siobhan took in a deep breath before answering the question.

'They're gone,' she said. Blaize cringed. 'Car crash in Wellington three years ago. Me and Norm were lucky we got out unscathed.'

'I… I'm so sorry,' Blaize comforted. 'I didn't know…'

'Exactly – you didn't,' Siobhan interrupted her. To Blaize's surprise, her tone didn't have an edge of iciness, sarcasm or venom – just one of weariness, as if her eyes had seen far too much, as if she were going to break down soon.

Siobhan sighed.

'You know, it's ironic,' she said, changing the topic. 'What's going on now, this situation – it's like your unnamed story just suddenly came to life and dumped us in place of the characters.'

Blaize just sighed in agreement. Her bag was gone now, and so was the story and the majority of her stuff. No matter. She'd be able to write it up again and replace the items she'd lost.

_But this time,_ she thought, _I'll actually have a _proper_ reference when it came to describing the infected._

'It's pretty late,' Siobhan continued, looking at the clock on the wall to her right, changing the topic again. It was already two in the morning. 'I reckon we should get some sleep now.'

'Yeah,' Blaize replied.

'Goodnight,' Siobhan said.

'You too.'

As Siobhan fell asleep, Blaize fingered the silver necklace around her own neck. It was the last thing her mother had given to her before she and Blaize's father left for their visit to Fairfield two weeks before.

'_Sonja – remember to take care of yourself when we're gone,' Stephanie Ignis told Sonja, her brown eyes and her mouth simultaneously smiling at her. 'We shouldn't be too long – just gotta sort out the stuff we left over at your Grandpa Bill's. And remember, you and Ben are going to be boarding at St. Monica's College in two weeks time.'_

_Sonja was at the airport with her parents at the "Departures" terminal. Ben had decided to wait at the taxi, no doubt to try and plan out what he could do while Stephanie and Bill Jr. were off in Fairfield for the following month._

'_I know, Mum,' Sonja smiled at her mother as she held Sonja's cheek. _

_Stephanie just smiled, her crimson-red ponytail bobbing up for a second before she took out a shiny silver necklace from her pocket._

'_Here,' she smiled at Sonja as she gave it to her, 'I was going to give you this at Christmas, but, well, you know. Just in case we take a lot longer than expected and miss Christmas with you.'_

_Sonja accepted the necklace – it was a simple cross on a shield, and despite its simplicity, it was beautiful._

'_Thanks, Mum,' she simply said. Her mother beamed back at her._

'_Don't worry about Ben's presents – we'll give him his when we get back from Fairfield. Oh, and don't let him near the chest in the attic, by the way – we both know what he does when he gets his presents too early.'_

_Stephanie was about to continue before Bill Jr. tapped his watch, reminding her that the plane was going to leave soon. Sighing, she picked up her luggage and took one last look at Sonja._

'_Oh, and one last thing before we go, Sonja,' she said. 'Watch over little Ben for us while we're gone, okay?'_

_Sonja just nodded._

'_Will do, Mum,' she assured her and smiled. 'I won't let him burn down the house like he did three weeks ago.'_

_Her mother simply smirked at her one last time before she and Sonja's father started walking. Sonja just stood there, watching as her parents disappeared down the "Departures" corridor, never to be seen again._

She smiled at the necklace and kissed it, knowing with a certain satisfaction that she was following her mother's request to the letter.

With that, she dozed off and fell asleep as outside, in the cold morning darkness, some Sickened shuffled around the ruined streets of the city. As for once in the history of Auckland City, it began to snow.

Author's Note: It's me, Matt, again :D There's the end of the chapter. You might've noticed the term "BCGs" in this chapter. For those of you who don't know, "BCGs" is a military term for the glasses recruits generally wear. It stands for "Birth Control Glasses", as they were said to make the wearer so ugly that... well, you can get what I'm getting at here. The female version of this is "RPGs" - "Rape Prevention Glasses". "FUBAR" stands for "F*cked Up Beyond All Recognition" (Or something along the lines of that).

Nice little terms to know, aren't they? :D


	3. Part Three

Author's Note: Another new chapter! This one you lot prolly haven't seen before. I think you'll like it :D Once again, please read and review! Criticisms are what greases the wheels :D Also, (and I haven't done any research - bugger me), does anyone know if it snows in Tennessee? In particular, Nashville?

Also, I have to admit, I borrowed a part off WildArm's story, Whatever Days May Come. It's a great story and it's worth reading, and for those of you who've read it, you might recognise a little scene. Heck, even the wording. There's also bits inspired by Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Only In Death - anyone who's read it might be able to point it out, too. There's also bits and pieces from Left 4 Dead, as well as other bits and pieces from other sources (which I shall not name for it might give us spoilers). All these bits and pieces belong to their said owners (although I try to give my own spin on it).

Ah well. There's me for now.

_Part Three: Auckland City, New Zealand, 9:00 PM, 20th December, 2012_

'Couldn't sleep too, hm?'

Blaize turned around to find Norman walking up to her as she looked outside of Sergeant Cyrus' safehouse at the snow. She couldn't believe what was happening before her eyes. Auckland City had never been this cold.

She swallowed.

'I… I suppose,' she replied before looking back out through the open door of the safehouse again, shivering again – despite the cold, her curiosity to see the snow was overpowering, as she'd never seen the stuff before. The sudden drop in temperature during the night had caught all of them by surprise. She felt something warm wrap itself around her.

Turning immediately, thinking it was Norman trying to pull off a hug, she realized that he was wrapping a warm, brown woollen shawl around her shoulders.

'Hey, hey. Just thought you'd need it,' he said, backing up a bit. Blaize smiled at him apologetically.

'Sorry. Just… just a bit jumpy at the moment. You… you know how it is.'

Norman laughed and smiled back.

'Of course.' He sat down next to Blaize and took in a deep breath. 'I'm sorry.'

Blaize raised an eyebrow towards him.

'About what?' she wondered aloud.

'Well… what's happened so far,' Norman replied. 'Me and Siob suspecting you of being infected-'

'Norm. I'm infected,' Blaize told him flatly. 'Surely those glowing red eyes Siob told me about me getting when the Sickness takes over aren't proof enough?' She quickly added, 'Or do you really think my period's that bad?'

Norman smirked, but the smile faded away almost as quickly as it came.

'I suppose,' he said glumly. He sighed. 'It's… it's just that I feel powerless that I can't do anything to help, that's all.'

Blaize gave him an empathetic look before resting her head on Norman's shoulder.

'How sweet,' she smiled. 'I appreciate the concern, Norm, but I'm doing fi- By God, Norm, you're shaking!'

Norman swallowed.

'I… I suppose that I was too caught up in surviving and making you guys were safe that I didn't have the… the _time_ to be scared,' he admitted, still shaking. Blaize just kept her head on his shoulder as Norman managed to put his arm around her.

'Just when I began to think you didn't feel anything for the past day,' she said. Norman looked offended.

'Each of us have our own ways of dealing with the situation,' he pointed out defensively. 'You and Siob are outright in your feelings, Ben's got a makeshift flamer to keep him calm, and this is mine.'

Blaize smirked.

'Y'know, calling Ben "calm" when he's with that deodorant can and lighter is like saying the sky is white at midnight,' she pointed out. Norman chuckled.

'Good point.' He looked at her and smiled.

'Aw. So cute,' Siobhan said from behind them. They turned around to see her smiling at the both of them. 'Still, Sergeant Cyrus wants to see ya, Blaize.'

Blaize sighed and picked herself up, smiling at Norman.

'Best get back to being serious, Norm,' she whispered in his ear. He simply smiled back.

When Blaize wasn't looking, Norman immediately spread his arms out wide in a questioningly manner at Siobhan. She simply gave him her signature mischievous grin.

Sergeant Cyrus was waiting for her on the other side of the room, sharpening his knife. He looked up at her as she walked up to him and sheathed it.

'Weird. I told Siobhan to fetch you in five minutes.' He shrugged as Ben, Norman and Siobhan approached. 'Well. One thing, kids. I ain't letting you lot get out of here without any directions, proper weapons or some basic training in them.'

He led the teenagers over to the weapons pile and spread each of the guns out – Blaize realized that they all had silencers on them – or rather, as her father had insisted, were "suppressed".

'Take your pick,' Sergeant Cyrus invited with a slight smile.

Norman strode over to a scoped hunting rifle and picked it up, turning it over in his hands.

'A sniper in the hands of someone with enough finesse to use it is more than a deadly weapon,' he said, smiling. He picked up a New Zealand Army Issue Ingram MAC-10 machine pistol as well. 'This'll do for closer range combat.'

Ben whistled as he picked up an extra Glock. Blaize sighed. Ben didn't have much practice in firing one pistol, let alone two at the same time.

'Choice…' he grinned, using the New Zealand slang almost as casually as a local. Sergeant Cyrus raised a finger.

'Wait a sec, Ben,' the sergeant said. 'I think I've got something I know you'll like.'

Sergeant Cyrus started digging in one of the further piles and pulled out, much to Ben's glee, not one but _two_ miniature flamethrowers, each as long as his forearms and each connected to a metal pack with plastic tubing, which, Blaize assumed, were filled with napalm.

Inside, Blaize groaned. Sure, this might've been a prudent idea during what she assumed was the end of the world, but the real problem would come when things came back to normal. Ben would go on a permanent cold turkey, she reckoned.

'Here. Don't use it all up on the first go and use only one of the flamer units and you should be fine,' Sergeant Cyrus said as he handed Ben the package. 'It's a prototype, by the way, meant for cleansing areas of corpses with minimal fuss – Captain Cale would've definitely wanted to see this baby in action during some of the nastier shit we'd been through…'

At that, the sergeant sniffed regretfully and sighed before regaining his composure and digging in the pile to retrieve one more pack. He handed it to Norman.

'In case Ben decides to indulge himself,' he told him.

Siobhan rolled her eyes. She'd been disillusioned of finding a weapon that she'd actually like until she eyed a black Remington 870 12-gauge suppressed shotgun, which she immediately picked up.

'I call shotgun,' she announced, and to the surprise of the others, hugged the gun and closed her eyes, smiling. 'Groovy.'

'Groovy,' Blaize imitated, with a smile.

'Groovy,' Siobhan repeated, taking a good look at the gun in both her hands.

At that, Blaize giggled.

'What's so funny? It _is_ groovy,' Siobhan said, raising an eyebrow at her. Sergeant Cyrus just sighed and put his face into his palm.

'C'mon. Hurry up, willya?'

Siobhan nodded, and picked up a stray machete in one of the piles.

'What's this doing in a gun pile?' she wondered aloud. She shrugged and, after finding its sheath, slipped it in and clipped it to her belt. Sergeant Cyrus looked at Blaize, who looked at the assorted guns thoughtfully after picking up a suppressor that fitted her M16A1 perfectly. There was no way in hell she'd ditch Grandpa Bill's rifle.

After a few seconds, she bent down and retrieved a fire axe, smiling before reversing her grip on it and pretending to play a guitar, which got some laughs from Norman and Siobhan.

'Okay, enough, kids,' Sergeant Cyrus said, this time muttering something about immaturity under his breath. 'Now, best show you how to operate these weapons while I'm still here to show ya…'

After a few minutes of showing each of them how to operate their weapons, the Rough Riders sergeant walked over to the safehouse door and opened it, taking a good look outside before turning back to look at the teenagers.

'Normally this wouldn't be suggested at all, given the risks,' he said, 'but, seeing as we ain't got nothing else, this'll have to do. You kids see those Sickened on the other side of the street?'

Blaize saw a small group of commons huddled around a frosted wrecked car, and nodded.

'Ben, Siobhan, I want you two to cover the escalator steps in case any of them get too close,' Sergeant Cyrus ordered. 'And Ben? Switch to your Glocks. Norman, Sonja, pick them off as best you can. Got it?'

'I bet you ten dollars I can get a headshot within ten seconds with this thing, Ben,' Norman said. Ben turned to him.

'You're on,' Ben replied. Norman raised his rifle, quickly aimed towards one of the Sickened and pulled the trigger before Blaize could even get ready to fire. As the suppressor made a whisper of the gunshot, Ben sighed – surprisingly enough, none of the other Sickened were alerted. 'Double or nothin',' he added. Another shot. 'Double or nothin',' Ben grumbled again. One more shot.

'That's… forty dollars you owe me now, Ben,' Norman counted, taking his eye off the scope to smirk at Ben. 'You sure you wanna keep up with this?'

'One more,' Ben said. 'Double this time.' As Norman took aim, however, Ben fired a shot from one of his pistols towards the Sickened. It missed by a long shot, but it got their attention. His target spun around to face the source of the pistol shot. Norman's rifle fired once more, but there was only the sound of metal ricocheting off one of the ruined cars.

'Shit!' Norman cursed as the initial Sickened screeched. 'Ben, what the hell have you done?'

'Earned myself eighty dollars, that's what,' Blaize's little brother retorted, raising his dual Glocks in anticipation. Sergeant Cyrus slapped him on the back of the head before getting his own machine gun ready.

'You've done it now, Ben,' Sergeant Cyrus scolded. 'Rule number one; don't frakking piss around.'

'I thought that was Cardio,' Blaize joked, causing Siobhan to smirk. The sergeant glared at her as the Sickened began to charge.

'Excuse me?'

'Um… nothing.' Blaize squeezed the trigger of her gun, firing off little bursts. Sergeant Cyrus aimed and started firing, as did everyone except for Ben and Siobhan, who were waiting for the Sickened to get closer.

Each of the Sickened that charged fell quickly. Nothing got close.

That was the case until there was a loud gurgle. Sergeant Cyrus stopped firing and scanned the area.

'Oh, _shit_,' he said. 'Get back. _Now_.'

Following his orders, all of them retreated back towards the safehouse door, killing the commons that came at them. There, Siobhan found that she was unaccustomed to the recoil of her shotgun - she hadn't been holding her shotgun properly and it rammed into her shoulder with full force, and Ben realized that dual-wielding two Glocks wasn't as easy as it looked. One of the pistols yanked back and whacked him in the head from recoil.

But it was yet to be seen what was making the gurgling sound.

The source was soon revealed as a very obese Sickened came blundering up the escalator steps on two, fat roll-covered stubbly legs, gurgling as it went. Large tumours sprouted from his already obscenely large stomach, and as it paused its glowing green eyes seemed to regard the five as food.

'Don't. Move. A muscle,' Sergeant Cyrus ordered.

Blaize and Ben were disgusted by the creature, recoiling at the sight of it. Siobhan, presumably impatient with seeing the fat thing standing there alive, immediately drew her machete and started going towards the creature, but Sergeant Cyrus held her back.

'Frak's sakes! What the frak did I say?' he scolded her. 'Here's hoping it hasn't detected us.'

Blaize raised an eyebrow at the sergeant.

'So then what's so nasty about-' she began.

She was interrupted as the creature heaved, and vomited towards them. It would've hit them were it not for Sergeant Cyrus pulling all of them back inside the safehouse, just out of reach. Blaize realized with horror that the places where the vomit hit were beginning to dissolve.

'That's why,' Sergeant Cyrus replied, and immediately shot the thing.

Instead of going down like a normal Sickened, the thing exploded in a loud, meaty explosion, more of its acid-vomit spraying the imminent area. The teenagers were dumbstruck.

'Yeesh,' Norman recoiled. 'Why didn't you do that earlier, Sarge?'

The combined loud cry of the common Sickened seemed to answer his question.

'The vomit lures Sickened to the area,' Sergeant Cyrus explained as he readied his machine gun. 'Here's lesson one, kids; be cautious of Boomers, as I've labelled the fat frakkers. Their vomit is acidic and draws nearby Sickened to the area. They're dim-witted and slow, however, and like a T-Rex, if you don't move a muscle, they bugger off.'

'But then Siob moved,' Norman pointed out.

'Exactly,' Cyrus replied. 'Ben, I want to see you use that flamer.'

Grinning, Ben holstered his pistols and immediately brandished his new weapon. He pointed at the incoming Sickened, and pulled the trigger.

A large jet of flame swarmed out from the flamer's snout and ignited the Sickened, their pained screeches filling the area. Sergeant Cyrus grinned.

'Remember what I told you. Fire in short bursts, Ben,' he reminded the young pyromaniac.

Blaize had to admit, the spectacle was beautiful, in its own way - the way the flames engulfed the incoming commons, the way it twisted and turned and flowed. The intense heat felt welcome in the snowy landscape that Auckland City had become. She could only guess at what Ben was feeling.

Norman and Siobhan were simply entranced by the spectacle.

'HAHAHA! YEEEEEEEAH!' Ben roared, sporting a grin worthy of the Cheshire Cat. Soon enough, the common Sickened stopped coming, and Sergeant Cyrus had to take Ben's finger off the trigger to get him to stop.

'Holy _shit_,' Siobhan swore as she looked at the damage.

The handles of the escalator had melted, and the area which had been bathed in flames was covered in thick soot. The self-piled corpses of the Sickened were already burning up, and there was no evidence of the snow that once blanketed the surrounding area.

Sergeant Cyrus nodded.

'Well done, kids,' he congratulated them. 'For FNGs, you did brilliantly. A little generous when it comes to ammo and a tad bit ignorant towards recoil, through.' He motioned towards Ben and Siobhan when he said that.

'But those are easy things to fix up,' he continued. 'I reckon you kids are ready.'

'Okay, you have got to be kidding me.'

Blaize raised an eyebrow at Norman.

'What is it?'

Norman motioned to the graffiti scrawling on the safehouse wall, where there were two particular pieces of work which seemed to contradict each other. They read:

**AUCKLAND MURPH LIVES LONG LIVE THE MOSH PIT HOOLIGANS!**

**The Mosh Pit Hooligans are nothing but a band of murderous savages! True salvation from The Sickness comes from Jimmy Noels, prophet of God the Highfather and leader of the Rouge Rogues!**  
**Our Crusade will CLEANSE Auckland City!**

'Who… _the hell_… is Auckland Murph?' Norman started. 'And who the hell are the Mosh Pit Hooligans and the Rouge Rogues? And look at all this other graffiti on these safehouse walls. It's just sad.'

Blaize shook her head. It had been about thirty minutes since they had left Sergeant Cyrus' safehouse, and following the directions he gave them, had decided to make a stop in one of the many red-steel-door safehouses that were dotted around Auckland City. They would rest inside this particular one until they were ready to make the seemingly long shot towards the Mission Bay Safehouse, where they would receive further orders.

It intrigued Blaize how it was that safehouses were made – she certainly had never seen them before. Norman had filled in for her that they were a Government idea, stocked with food and other items prospective survivors would need in case of natural disaster.

Since the outbreak of The Sickness, some kind, wise (and probably illegal) souls had left behind stashes of live ammo in the safehouses as well as the occasional weapon, which Blaize was sure she and the others wouldn't need.

This particular safehouse was situated in a bar along the waterfront – The Bar on Quay, she thought it was called. The four teenagers had just finished blocking the entrance with furniture when Norman had spotted the scribblings on the walls.

Graffiti writing expressing the opinions of previous survivors ranged from rumours that the Sickness was an Army experiment gone wrong to how humanity was the real monster were written in black and red permanent markers and spray cans. Around such messages were smaller messages, some calling the original writers idiots and madmen in witty ways, others supporting their views.

On another wall of the safehouse, behind the counter, were death notices. The sad thing was that there was no space left on it.

Blaize was surprised when she found Siobhan picking up one of said pens and started writing something around the quote "**WE ARE THE REAL MONSTERS**" in red writing. It read;

**"You are a real MORON."**

Siobhan even drew in a little smiley face next to her words.

'Siob,' Blaize told her, 'Seriously?'

It was at that Siobhan turned on her.

'What? It's my own opinion,' she said.

'Yeah, but…' Blaize swallowed. '…but _why?_ That ink could be used for something else that's more import-'

'Oh, _you_ and all _your_ ideals of "Oh, we've gotta think about everyone else!" and all that screwed up _shit!_' Siobhan interrupted her, sticking a finger in her face and almost yelling. 'You think we've got to adhere to your oh-so-noble ways, Blaize! THIS IS THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, FOR CHRISSAKES! CAN YOU CAN IT AND START THINKING ABOUT HOW I'M FEELING FOR A CHANGE _FOR A FEW EFFING MINUTES!_'

Blaize started backing up. Siobhan just advanced on her until Blaize's back hit the wall. Ben and Norman looked up from checking their weapons at the spectacle with interest. Blaize gulped. Siobhan seemed like she was about to yell some more when she stopped, and gripped the back of her head like she was having a headache. She breathed in deeply, and then out, and swallowed.

'Look. Blaize, I'm sorry,' she apologized. 'Logorrhoea's setting in again. It's been happening more and more often since this shit started.'

At the mention of logorrhoea, Blaize noticed out of the corner of her eye that Norman was sniggering quietly to himself. It was then the penny dropped.

'Siob,' Blaize began, 'what exactly _is_ "logorrhoea"?'

Siobhan, who had now managed to regain her composure, looked at Blaize curiously.

'Excuse me?'

'Logorrhoea. What's it mean?'

Siobhan paused, thinking to herself.

'Um. It's a disorder that causes severe mood swings in a person,' she explained. 'In my case, severe bitchiness… at times.'

At that, Blaize started giggling.

'What? What?' Siobhan asked her sternly.

'Oh… my… God…' Blaize managed. 'Who told you that?'

Siobhan scratched her head, a thoughtful look on her face.

'I… I think it was Norm,' she replied. 'Yeah. It was Norm.'

'And did you look up the word afterwards?'

'Um… no,' Siobhan admitted.

Blaize told her Norman's _correct_ meaning. Subsequently, Siobhan's jaw dropped like she'd been slapped. She turned towards Norman, who immediately burst out laughing, Ben doing likewise.

'NOOOORMAAAAN!' she screamed.

Norman immediately stopped laughing.

'Oh, _shit,_' he said, and on the basis of a wise anticipation, began to run towards the kitchens that were around the corner as Siobhan immediately set off in pursuit, spouting expletives as she went. Blaize and Ben laughed.

That was, until all of a sudden, Norman and Siobhan went quiet. Norman had opened the kitchen door and had stopped dead in his tracks. There was the sound of loud crying from the kitchen. It came as a huge shock they hadn't heard it earlier. Siobhan yanked Norman back outside and closed the door as she did so, stopping the sound.

'Shit,' Siobhan swore. 'Witch.'

The name inspired fear. Before the teenagers had left Sergeant Cyrus' safehouse, the Rough Riders sergeant had given them quick lessons on the many different kinds of special Sickened – the glowing green-eyed ones.

The Witches were one of the worst of said special Sickened. Like emotional Venus Flytraps, Witches drew unwary survivors near them, and after registering their presence, went after them if they were disturbed. Despite the fact that they looked like emotional wrecks incapable of anything other than sitting there and sobbing, that was _exactly_ what made them so deadly, so Sergeant Cyrus had told them.

There had been reports that a single Witch had massacred over ten people within thirty seconds, eviscerating unsuspecting survivors using the talons they had in lieu of fingers. They were much stronger than they looked and second in danger factor to Tanks.

While it was completely unnerving to see a Witch, as Sergeant Cyrus said, there was something wrong with this particular one.

'Blimey. Norm, you okay?' Siobhan asked. She seemed to forget his deception. 'You look like you've seen a ghost.'

Norman shook his head. He'd paled.

'Madison,' he managed. 'It's Madi in there.'

'Oh, _shit_,' Siobhan swore again. 'You sure?'

'Sure as sure can be,' Norman replied. 'She's wearing the necklace I gave her for her birthday four years ago.' He paused. 'Siob, give me your shotgun.'

There were three ways one could deal with Witches, as Sergeant Cyrus taught them. The first and easiest was to procure something extremely sugary and throw it somewhere out of the way, as Witches seemed to be extremely attracted to sugar. The second was to sneak around them.

The third was to plant the end of a shotgun barrel on its head and pull the trigger.

'What?' Siobhan blurted out.

'Wait, no, no, there's no need,' Blaize pointed out. 'She's not in our way. We'd better leave her alone.'

'Yeah, Sonja's got a point,' Ben added. 'It's an unnecessary risk, innit?'

'_Hand me your shotgun_, _Siob,_' Norman's voice commanded firmly. 'Madi's been through a hell of a lot lately. Getting shown down by Blaize, the bus, _this…_' He swallowed. 'I don't want her to suffer anymore, to keep crying for the rest of her poor life. I want to end her suffering, here and now.'

'You don't have to do it, Norm,' Siobhan said. 'I can go in and do it for you. You don't have to be the one to do it. You _shouldn't_ be the one to do it.'

'I do, Siob. Because I owe her that, at least.'

Siobhan nodded, giving in. She handed her shotgun to Norman, who took it and disappeared through the kitchen doors.

'I'm sorry I couldn't keep you safe, Madi,' Norman's voice could be heard. 'I failed you. When you needed me most, I wasn't there.' The angry growling of Madison could be heard. Siobhan drew in a breath through clenched teeth and silently began praying.

The growling grew louder.

'Is God going to make it okay? I honestly don't know. I don't know plenty of things these days now. I don't have all the answers. I'm sorry I couldn't have been there at your mother's funeral, where you said you needed me most. I'm sorry I couldn't be who a great girl like you really, _really_ needed.'

There was a pause as the growling almost reached its loudest.

'When you get up there with God and your parents, tell them I tried my best to protect you. Madi, despite all the crap that's happened… I love you.'

Blaize, Siobhan and Ben all heard the Witch's deafening shriek, followed by a loud shotgun blast. Second passed, and then they all heard something faint.

Weeping.

But it wasn't from the Witch.

Later on in the day, Norman had emerged from the kitchen, his clothes and his face stained with blood. Siobhan tried to talk to him, but the only thing the ex Head Boy of St. Monica's College said was "Here" when he passed her shotgun back, proceeding to get back to checking his weapons silently.

It was as if the once-vigorous soul had been drained out from him, as if it had died and left his body to fight on.

Blaize didn't understand at first. Madison, from her experience, was a pent-up ungrateful bitch who used to be Norman's ex-girlfriend. After asking Siobhan about it, she understood.

Madison hadn't always been that way. Once, three years back, she had been a happy go-lucky girl, loved by pretty much everyone in St. Monica's. Somewhat shy, pretty, humble, almost always smiling. It was only then that Blaize realized with a deep horror that Madison back then was just like _her_.

Madison had adored Norman. The two were seen as inseparable.

Then came the death of her mother, three years ago. Her father had been murdered by gang members soon after her birth, and her mother was all that she had left. Her mother had died in an accident with a drink-driver. She was shattered, and the only one she could rely on – Norman – wasn't there to comfort her because he was at another funeral – that of his and Siobhan's parents.

Madison, however, wasn't as tough as Norman, so Siobhan said. The experience had shattered her, and the happy Madison that had been well-known to the students and teachers of St. Monica's College had died. She retreated into petty material things to dull her pain, or so Siobhan had reckoned, hating almost everyone else for her problems.

But, Siobhan added, there was some spark inside of her before. A spark of what used to be good about her. Her love for Norman.

Given time, she and Norman probably would've gotten back together again and she would've reverted back to her usual, happy self.

But then the Sickness happened.

'It's sad, really,' Siobhan had said afterwards, watching as her brother almost emotionlessly counted the rounds he had left for his sniper rifle. 'Sure, I hated Madi, but that's because she started being selfish started blaming Norm for not being there instead of our parents' funeral and because she was being a bitch all the time.'

Blaize swallowed.

'I… I…' Blaize tried to get the words out of her mouth. She swallowed. 'I… I just wish I could've met her before all this crap happened to her,' she said. 'We could've been friends, by the sounds of it.'

Siobhan nodded, sighing.

'Oh, yes. You probably would've,' she replied sadly, and turned to check her own weapons. 'Because I used to be.'

'_Is there anyone there?' someone called out, as though from a great distance._

_Blaize had no idea of what was going on. She was in the middle of a big room, which had small windows at the top of it. The windows revealed a darkened Auckland City, complete with the Skytower in ruins. Bright lights that hung from the ceiling illuminated a few basketball hoops attached to the walls ominously._

'_Is there anyone there?' the voice called out again._

_Blaize looked around her, and saw a girl huddled in a corner, shivering, and all alone._

_She had the brown complexion of a half-Maori half-European, with long black hair tied up in a ponytail. She was wearing a dark blue jacket and jeans, and looked to be about eighteen, Blaize's age, and was looking cautiously around her, almost as if she expected some Sickened to enter the room._

'_I'm here,' Blaize called out before walking towards the girl._

_As soon as the girl heard her, she raised her head and looked at Blaize._

_Then, Blaize realized that the girl's eyes were different, like her own. They were an unearthly shade of dark cobalt. In a good deal of respects, this girl seemed just like her, only the opposite colours. The scent of lavender emanated from the girl like a perfume._

'_Who… who are you?' the girl asked, probably still wondering inside whether to trust Blaize or not._

'_I'm Sonja,' Blaize replied. 'Sonja Ignis. Call me Blaize.'_

_The girl seemed to calm down a little as Blaize squatted down next to her._

'_What's your name?' Blaize asked, smiling to show she was harmless._

_The girl hesitated for a few seconds._

'_Tiff… Tiffany…' she managed, calming down some more. 'Tiffany Glaices.' _

_Blaize nodded._

'_You need some help getting out of here?' she asked her._

_Tiffany simply nodded. _

_Suddenly, she leapt at Blaize, gripping the front of Blaize's jacket. Her face was now mere centimetres away form Blaize's, her eyes wide open, her breathing hard and ragged. Blaize was too shocked to do anything. Tiffany's expression turned quickly into one of begging, and spoke. This time, to Blaize's horror, her voice had changed to one more familiar to her._

**_It's not me that needs the help,_**_ she said in the voice of The Sickness, her mouth and expressions not in sync with the voice and its tone. She gave Blaize a speculative look. _**_It's_ you.**

_Tiffany's last word rang out across the room like church bells, and Blaize was brought back into consciousness._

As her eyes flickered open, she realized that she was underwater. It was icy cold, and something long and slimy had wrapped itself around her stomach.

It was then, as she struggled for air, she remembered.

The survivors had left the second safehouse approximately twenty minutes ago in their bid to reach the Mission Bay safehouse. They trekked along the shoreline road, but not without resistance.

There were plenty of Sickened, and a new variety that exhibited special traits the other Sickened didn't, of which she was the victim currently.

She twisted and turned around in the thing's grip to swim back up to the surface to breathe, but noticed that the thing that was wrapped around her stomach was, in fact, a Sickened's long tongue.

Sergeant Cyrus had spoken of a green-eye Sickened type which seemed to fit the circumstances – Grabbers, they were called. Special Sickened whose only purpose was to separate prospective survivors, Grabbers were, like all Special Sickened, dangerous things, their long tongues pulling people away, snapping necks or suffocating them eventually.

This particular tongue was pulling her deeper underwater towards it as its glowing green eyes seemed to narrow with malicious glee at the prospect of new prey.

Then, she heard a loud shot from above the water, and the Sickened with the long tongue's head exploded into a cloud of greenish-blood underwater as she felt its grip weakening on her. But it was already too late. Everything was starting to go dark as she realized that she'd lost too much air. She wouldn't be able to swim back up to the surface by herself now. All that she could do now was hang suspended in the water… and drown.

There was a splash from above the water, and then strong hands grasped her shoulders and placed her in its arms. Before the darkness enveloped her sight, she saw that it was Norman.

The next thing she could remember was that she was on the ground on her back, and she immediately coughed up water. She coughed some more as the darkness receded, and she lay back down, gasping for air.

She blinked as she saw Norman, Siobhan and Ben standing over her before swallowing, taking in another gulp of cold air, and sitting back up again. Her head was throbbing, but she managed to sport a smirk before coughing again. It had to be Norman who had shot the long-tongued Sickened.

'Thanks,' she said to Norman, picking herself up. The ground underneath her was a mixture of snow and road, and to her discomfort was colder and more unforgiving than the water.

Siobhan handed Blaize her assault rifle as Ben toted his flamer cautiously, looking out for any Sickened.

'You dropped this,' Siobhan said, with a smile. She reached into a backpack she'd found in the second safehouse and produced a familiar brown woollen shawl. As Siobhan wrapped it around Blaize, she felt a bit of warmth returning to her.

'Don't worry about the cold,' Siobhan added with a warm smile. 'You'll be warm enough when we're running for our lives.'

Blaize managed a smirk at Siobhan's advice.

They were currently over a bridge that closed off a tidal basin along the shoreline, and an intersection lay ahead, with a large cliff looming over the bridge as well as the shoreline road. A thick white fog obscured everything else as the sun struggled to shine through.

As soon as Blaize was able to move, the group restarted their journey, following the road along the cliff line.

Hours later, after an almost insane amount of fighting and uncountable times they had to stop to allow Blaize to keep up, the survivors managed to find the Mission Bay safehouse, which was nestled snugly between the cinemas and Movenpick, the ice cream parlour, inside a Belgian restaurant. It was already dark when they arrived.

Despite their exhaustion, Ben and Norman pushed some heavy furniture in the way of the red steel door as Blaize and Siobhan consulted the radio on the bar. The clock on the wall announced silently that it was six in the evening, despite the midday appearance outside.

After twiddling with it for a few seconds, the radio sparked to life on the Army Emergency channel as Ben and Norman finished their task and walked over to the radio to listen in.

'Hello?' Norman asked over the radio uncertainly.

A few seconds passed as some static crackled.

'Who is this?' a voice came over the speakers.

'This is Norman Skibursky. Sergeant Cyrus sent us here to await further orders from a… Captain Greg?'

'Oh. Wait a second, then. I'll go get him. He's expecting you.'

Twenty more seconds passed.

'This is Captain Gregory Hales of the New Zealand Army, Rough Riders Division,' a new voice came over the speakers. It was more confident than the last, and spoke of inner calm and total self-control. 'I see Sergeant Cyrus' faith in you kids was well-placed.'

Norman coughed before continuing.

'I see. Well, he told us that we were supposed to await our next orders here, right?'

'To the point. I like that. Either way, Norman, I'm afraid you're going to have to stay where you are at the moment. Our helicopters can't pick you up at Mission Bay, but they can pick you up on the library roof over in the nearby town of St. Heliers, and that'll be cutting it close enough as it is, as it's the only roof that has tree cover against Grabbers and a newly-built landing pad.'

'I sense a "but" coming,' Ben said.

'You are correct,' Captain Greg replied. 'At the moment, our helicopters are currently picking up other survivors and supplies from different areas. The only time I can get a helicopter over to St. Heliers is at around midnight.'

'Midnight?' Norman asked.

'Yes. I'll radio you again thirty minutes prior to the pickup time. There enough materials to make a few Molotov cocktails, and, from what I've heard from other survivors that have passed through the Mission Bay safehouse, a few comfy mattresses and blankets and even a working freezer with a few tubs of ice cream.. And if that's not enough, kids, it'll be me and my squad that personally evacuates you out of this hellhole, so don't complain, because you've got it pretty good at the moment.'

Norman nodded, Blaize and Siobhan smiled at Captain Greg's use of humour, and Ben's face lit up at the prospect of free ice cream.

'Got it, sir. We'll be here when you radio us,' Norman said.

'Good. Don't be late, 'cause I won't. Captain Greg out.'

It was then Norman looked up at the clock on the wall.

'_Shit_,' he cursed. 'It's only seven. Looks like we've got four and a half hours to kill, guys.'

About thirty minutes later, after they had prepared everything they could, they were all lying on the mattresses that were on the second floor, which had a good view of the safehouse door. As it turned out, Blaize was still cold from her plunge into the water, and the lowered temperatures hadn't been kind to her. She was suffering from mild hypothermia. She had to take off her red jacket, as it was too wet (she found that amazingly enough, her jeans weren't).

All of them knew that the best way to warm up one person was another person. Naturally, Ben didn't want to hold his older sister in his arms even if it meant to help save her life, as it would be "too bloody awkward", and Siobhan thought Norman was too eager to do so.

And so, Blaize and Siobhan were sharing the mattress, the latter having her arms tightly wrapped around the former's body under the thick blankets.

'Y'know…' Blaize started, looking at Norman on the mattress next to hers, '…somehow, this just doesn't feel as wrong as it looks.'

Norman, who had been looking up the ceiling on his mattress, turned and looked at the both of them. For the first time since the incident with Madison, he smiled warmly.

'Heh. You know, if Siob wasn't my sister, I probably would've said something nastily perverted already,' he said, sitting up on his mattress.

'You have a sick mind, Norm,' Siobhan retorted from behind Blaize.

'Oh, you think _he_ has a sick mind?' Ben asked from the staircase. He'd managed to find a freezer full of ice cream within the safehouse, and was currently eating some straight from the tub with a fork. 'You don't even _want_ to know the crap I've come up with in _my_ head, that's for sure.'

The girls recoiled at that.

'Eeeew,' Blaize said. 'Did I ever tell you… that you're a perv, Ben?'

'Hey, don't be looking at me, Sonja. _You_ were the one who had that file called "Lesbian Porn" on your computer.'

At that, a worried look seemed to spread across Siobhan's face, and her grip loosened a bit.

'_You_ were the one who put that file on _my_ computer since it didn't have a password back then,' Blaize retorted. 'I saw you… I saw you…' she stopped trying to finish her sentence and cringed in disgust. 'I saw you doing whatever nasty crap you call-'

'-Wanking?' Norman supplied helpfully.

'Oh, God, not you too, Norm,' Siobhan moaned. Norman held his hands out in a questioning matter.

'What? It's what it's called, isn't it?' he pointed out. The look on his face betrayed the fact that he was enjoying rifling up Blaize and Siobhan. 'What else do you want me to say? Jerking off, playing with yourself-'

'-Honking the horn,' Ben added, seeing Norman's plan and going along with it.

'There's no need to be hypocritical about it,' Norman added quickly, seizing on the chance to antagonize Blaize and Siobhan. He held up his index finger. 'Research shows that girls actually have the same sex drives as boys, and, therefore-'

'Awkward, _awkward!_' Blaize groaned, throwing her hands up in the air. 'Dude, _not cool._ Why can't we talk about something else? Like… like the whole Twilight saga, for instance.'

'Ooh! Ooh!' Siobhan started enthusiastically. She then stopped, her enthusiasm flooding away as quickly as it had come. 'Meh.' She shrugged as well as someone keeping another person in an embrace while lying down on a mattress could. 'It's… it's okay, I reckon.'

'It's… _okay?_' Blaize scoffed, almost offended. She shivered a bit during bits of her sentences. 'Twilight is _merely_ "Okay"? It's very well-written and the movies… are _brilliant!_ I want to be able… to write my stuff so that it's as good as Stephanie Meyers', if not better.'

'I'll agree, it's well-written,' Norman piped up, 'and the movies were good. But they're not _that_ good, are they?'

'Of course they are! You've got the good stuff in there and then some!' Blaize protested. She sniffed. 'Sure, the plot's… a tad bit shaky in _Breaking Dawn_, but it definitely worked well!'

'Pah. The movies were quite good,' Ben said, shrugging as he waved his ice cream fork around in a small circle. 'Couldn't be stuffed reading the books, though.' He paused. 'Really, though, why'd all the Twilight fans have to split up into only Team Jacob and Team Edward, anyways? Why… why not Team Alice, for instance? I'd join Team Alice if there was one.'

Norman shrugged.

'Girl fans, I reckon,' he said. 'With all the attention on Edward and Jacob, why have another team? Alice probably would've made the best team out of all the alternatives, but the percentages of guys who like Twilight and lesbians probably isn't high enough to be able to set up such a team.' He stopped and looked at Blaize and Siobhan curiously. 'What about you, Siob?' he added slyly, narrowing his eyes.

Siobhan simply grabbed a pillow and lobbed it at her brother, which he caught easily.

'Go screw yourself, Norm,' she retorted.

'With what, exactly?' he put back. '_A screwdriver?_ _Perish the thought_. At least I've got one _I_ can use. Between the both of you…'

At that, Siobhan just groaned and let go of Blaize, sitting upright on the mattress.

'Norman,' Siobhan said sweetly, injecting a hint of frustration in her tone and putting her hands on her hips, 'you said you wanted to keep Blaize warm. If it'll stop the unjustified lesbian jokes, you can go right ahead.' She gestured toward the mattress as Blaize started to shiver a bit. She narrowed her eyes at her brother challengingly. Blaize opted to stay quiet and watch what would happen.

Norman sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, thinking hard.

'Oh, please. I'm not the honourless scoundrel you seem to want to make me look like,' he replied. 'I respect women, Siob, thank you very much.'

'It… it certainly didn't seem to look that way,' Blaize sniffed. She reached out for a Kleenex from the box of tissues and sneezed into it. 'Throwing jokes at lil' ol' me…'

Norman's stance changed to a sympathetic one.

'Throwing jokes at _you_, of all people?' he asked without sarcasm. 'Perish the thought. Really, Blaize, you know we're just joking around, right?'

'Ha ha,' Blaize sniffed unenthusiastically.

She would've continued were it not for the crackling of the radio from downstairs – a signal. Immediately, Norman got up and went down the stairs to answer it.

'That's… that's weird,' Siobhan said. 'It's only seven-thirty.'

There was a click as Norman turned the radio on, increasing the volume so that everyone could hear. Blaize's ears pricked up as a voice came through over the radio. She sat up to hear more clearly.

She looked at the others. Norman had come back up the stairs. Blaize immediately began wondering why he hadn't responded.

There was clearly a voice over the radio. It was familiar, but she couldn't pinpoint whose it was – it was distorted in some fashion. It whimpered. And its tone was seriously scaring Blaize.

She heard Norman exclaim something, looking at her. Ben reacted as soon as he saw Blaize, and she felt Siobhan scramble out of the mattress as fast as she could. All the while, the voice kept repeating over the radio.

_Just answer it already!_ Blaize thought, hoping they would do so. She just wanted the voice to stop. Then she spotted the look on the others' faces.

Fear.

For some reason, the hypothermia had gone. So had the remnants of her internal injury from that morning. She felt… she felt better than she ever had. Ben, Siobhan and Norman simply shrank back, almost shaking.

It confused her. She looked around her, trying to find the source of their fear. She caught the glimpse of a mirror on the wall.

And then she gasped.

Her eyes were now glowing fully red.

The voice over the radio repeated its message one last time, and suddenly, it became gibberish. At that very moment, Blaize saw the red glow retreat back into her eyes from the mirror. She looked at the others.

'Oh. My. God.'

She sank to her knees on the mattress, cupping her hands over her mouth, and began shaking. Tears streaked down her cheeks. But these weren't the tears of sorrow or joy.

These were the tears when you had discovered something truly terrifying.

She fell onto the mattress, and closed her eyes tightly, curling up into a ball. The gibberish on the radio kept repeating, but she'd understood what it was during the time her eyes had glowed red.

'Am I the only one here?' the gibberish had whimpered. 'Anyone, anyone, please? Am I the only one alive?'

The thing that scared her the most was that it wasn't just anyone's voice that had been repeating that message over the radio.

It was her own.


End file.
